Lisbon Portugal…a beautiful, historic city by the sea. Sun, warmth, and great cheap food and wine!!!

We landed in Lisbon on a nice, cool evening in mid-January and were picked up by a van arranged by our AirBNB host. The apartment was in the wonderful, historic neighborhood of Alfama. The van couldn’t drive to the door, though - it parked at a church and we then had to walk down a cobblestone street, past a few restaurants, to the front door of our home for the next 6 days. Unfortunately we had to hoof our luggage up 4 steep flights of winding, narrow stairs…..none of which were straight. The building must have been several hundred years old. 

After we settled in, we went back up the street and ate at a really nice, quaint, local restaurant which the driver had noted was a bit expensive. We tried a little Portuguese, but fortunately, the waitress spoke very good English… I think she said she learned from watching Netflix. 😊 The meal was fantastic: we had a huge piece of salmon, a giant plate of vegetables, cheese, olives, and a jug of their house red wine. The whole meal cost $30.

The food and wine throughout this area was amazing. I’ll write more about some of the other places later.

The next morning we woke to a beautiful view over the alley/street and a peekaboo of the sea. We started to figure out that this was a very dated, unkept AirBNB. The bathroom was the size of a small closet. You had to leave the door open to fit standing at the sink. Everything was old and had a musty smell.

BTW, I should also tell you that I started to come down with a nasty cold on the last day in London, and now it was getting worse. It turned into a very bad respiratory infection. Without making light of the Coronavirus pandemic, I think I might have had it! I’m still waiting to get a blood test to see if I have antibodies. But point is, I became Very ill in Lisbon.

Jos found a great coffee roaster, Copenhagen Coffee Lab. It was in a vaulted basement, and their coffee was amazing; they also had crazy-good pastries. We had coffee there every day - sometimes twice - and a lot of good food. We took a nice walk through the small, quaint streets, which had amazing wooden doors, and laundry hanging out the windows. There were amazing tiled walls and colors everywhere. It was even more colorful and bright when backed by the blue sky and ocean. The streets were as steep as those in San Francisco: easy to go down, but a haul to get back up. There were amazing views of church steeples, old buildings, and of the Atlantic. We walked for hours, stopped in some cool eateries, and even stopped in a cannabis place: Portugal has not been legalized, so they only some CBD products. Not that we were looking for anything, but fun to look around. We walked by old churches and cool, little outside bars and restaurants, and some miradouros (public terraces, or scenic viewpoints with views over the city and ocean.

The next day we wanted to ride on the funky trollies down the narrow alleys. We waited for an hour, then took a short ride. The trollies were cute but not efficient: most times it would have been quicker to walk, but we had already paid for our tickets. The funiculars - trams going from the top to bottom of steep streets kind of a like a ski lift. They were scenic, but short and touristy. The weather had been amazing for the first few days with highs in the 70s, but started to turn cold as we were in the middle of our trip, which did not help being sick.

In our neighborhood, most days, there was an elderly woman who sat inside her window at street level a few floors below us. She talked to everyone who passed by. We heard her chatting with locals every morning. We did speak to her a few times, and she was quick to correct our poor Portuguese, but with a smile. She was so cute and we had fun greeting her every time we passed by.

I had to put a pitch together for a prospective employer the next day and only had my iPad with me but wanted a keyboard. So, I had to go to a local internet cafe - yes, they still exist! Jos was skeptical. However, this place was out of the 1990s.. including their ancient computers. The displays were also in Portuguese, so it took some help from the guy behind the counter to get me on the right track. Even though I was terribly sick, I managed to put something together. Jos also helped proofread it later to make sure it made sense. The person must have liked my work, because we are still discussing this new role for their company.

I’m sorry to say that, due to my illness, we didn’t get out and about that much. Sorry Jos. Why I was working on my pitch, Jos did visit the old Castle on the top of the hill (you can see it from everywhere in the neighborhood), the Castelo de Sao Jorge. Some of its walls date to as early as the 10th bc.

We closed out our last day eating at a restaurant some blocks away which had a cat theme, El Gato Pardo. The Owner greeted us at the door and gave us a nice table by the fireplace. We quickly found out the cat theme….no kitties in the restaurant, but the art, placemats, and most other things had a feline theme. After ordering, I started to talk to the Owner about cats, and he told me that he was part of a group of restaurants and shops who support the local shelters and find homes for homeless cats. I love this guy and their great restaurant. Please eat there if you are in Alfama. The food and wine were wonderful. What a nice way to end out trip to Lisbon.

If you come to Lisbon, you should really consider this area of the city. The food, wine, hilly, narrow streets, and the people were absolutely wonderful. Alfama is magical.