Lisbon (Monday 3/27)

We started off the day with breakfast at a bakery near our apartment--very small, full of locals, no one who spoke any English at all. The owner (or worker?) shooed a black-shrouded old woman from her table to make room for us, and we were convinced she'd put some kind of curse on us. We had delicious toast with olive oil, and the kids had croissants. 

Maybe because of the old woman's curse, or maybe because we'd planned poorly, but during breakfast Andrew realized that our plan for the day--go to Belem--wouldn't work because everything there was closed on Mondays. We recalibrated, deciding to have a day of doing all the small random things we hadn't yet done in Lisbon. It turned out to be one of the best days.

We first walked to a metro station to buy all-day travel cards for public transportation, then rode the metro to the origin point of two tram lines--#28 and #12. The #28 is the most famous tram, very touristy, and the line was insane--stretching down the block. More than an hour's wait to ride at the very least. But the #12 covers some of the same ground, and there was a very short line--so we hopped on. And it was so much fun. The trams squeeze down the narrowest streets, so narrow that pedestrians have to stand with their backs against the wall along the sidewalk to avoid being hit. 

We had a wonderful lunch at Mezzo Giorno on Rua Garrett (Chiado neighborhood), an Italian restaurant with tables in a secluded courtyard. Andrew and I had aperol spritzes, and we spent a long time enjoying the setting. Throughout the day we also tried ginginha (sour cherry liqueur), stopped for coffee in the Santa Roque plaza (the girls wrote secret messages and hid them around the lottery seller statue, hoping someone would find one while they watched), tasted pastel de bacalau, walked along the river, and shopped for shorts at H&M (none of us packed appropriately for this trip). Andrew bought a hat for a Portugal soccer team. He was also almost the target of a trio of pickpockets. 

We rode more trams during the day, too--#24 and, eventually, the famed #28 (from a not-crowded stop). We all loved it. We didn't have destinations in mind--just used our travel cards to hop on and off as we wanted. 

We spent a little time back at the apartment packing up. While we were there, Andrew realized he'd left his new hat in the dressing room of H&M. I encouraged him to hop back on the tram and go back to find it--which he did!

Dinner was one of the best of the trip--a tiny restaurant called A Obra, on a charming street called Rua da Silva, nicknamed "Green Street" because of all the plants lining the sidewalk outside apartments. We ordered a bunch of dishes to share: grilled cabbage, roasted tomato hummus, gnocchi in butternut squash sauce, black pork pica-pau (cubes of grilled pork), and the restaurant's speciality, prawn sandwiches. All delicious. 

Then it was back to the apartment, where we made lunches for the train and prepared to leave--tomorrow we begin the Algarve part of our trip. I don't think we're ready to leave Lisbon, though. There's still so much we haven't seen.