Around Lisbon

Lisbon was the last stop on our honeymoon, and we loved it. When I had to attend a conference there for work, we jumped at the chance to return. Dan joined me, and we extended the work trip into a vacation. We had an easy arrival on a Friday morning in late September, greeted at the airport by a very friendly Canadian woman at passport control, and a humorous and helpful Vodafone guy. Our hotel in the Baixa district was easy to find, and had a nice coffee shop we could wait in until our room was ready for us.

Once we had settled into our room, we walked up to Rua Do Duque for dinner at Moura Saluquia. We had fond memories from our last visit of delicious, unpretentious food that was prepared with love, and our first dinner fit that bill. We shared a liter of sangria branca, and Dan ordered pork medallions wrapped in bacon, which came with salad, golden fried potatoes, and rice. I had grilled corvino, a somewhat strongly flavored but delicious fish. My meal also came with salad, and with boiled golden potatoes with parsley and butter. We shared a dish of of arroz doce (pronounced ‘dolsh’), rice pudding with a hint of orange, and topped with lots of cinnamon sugar for dessert.

After dinner, we walked up a set of stairs into the Bairro Alto, but soon decided we were too tired to go much further. We turned around and wondered what a small group of people was looking at back down those stairs, which turned out to be the iconic Calçada do Duque. The moon was just past full, and perfectly aligned over the Castelo de Sao George atop the next hill. We stopped near the foot of the stairs for a glass of sweet and potent ginginha on our way back down to our hotel. A lovely evening to start our trip off right.

Our next adventure was a visit to the Carmo Convent on Saturday.