Olá from Lisbon.
We arrived yesterday. Life's great. My dad's loving this city and he tells me so about every half hour. He wants us to speak in Spanish so that we don't stand out as Americans. My guess is, though, that we just look and sound like two Americans speaking Spanish with a bad accent. But whatever. On Friday we arrived and got our car. Clark drove and I navigated. We got on the street, but wrong direction, so we got turned around and then Belém wasn't too hard to find. Belém is an area of Lisbon that's to the west of the city. There's a cool tower there.
There's also this awesome monument called O Padrão dos Descobrimentos. I loved it. Absolutely loved it.
Then it was off to the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Jeronimos Monestary). They had some beautiful gold work inside the church at the monastery. I think G & K's opa would've appreciated it. While my dad and I were sitting outside waiting, Cristiano Ronaldo walked by with a bodyguard or two. It was sorta surreal. Very unexpected. He's the most popular soccer player right now in Portugal. His hair was done really funny.
We found some great pastéis to eat and then we went back to the hotel. To do this we had to drive around and around until I figured out where we were. Because of this we ended up in the Alfama. It's a cool part of Lisbon. Eventually we found the hotel. Nothing else happened last night because I fell asleep.
Today (being Saturday) we decided to wander around Lisbon. We went to the middle of the city and walked thru it. Then we went to the church of the Carmelite order that had its roof destroyed in the great earthquake of 1755. From there we walked to the municipal center where there's a big arch and a statue to João or José or Pedro. I've lost track. We decided to go back to the Alfama (where I am now) and go to the Sé, Lisbon's main cathedral built after the reconquest in 1150 or so. Later we found a great store that had tons of Azulejo (Portuguese tile). The women there were excited that a tourist knew their language. I had fun talking to them. They told us about a great place to go eat where you can hear fado. Clark really wants to hear fado, so that's where we headed tonight.
So there you go. Our first two days in Portugal. I'll update again later.
Tchauzinho de Belo Portugal!!
2 comments:
it's parks. glad you enjoyed lisbon. i hope the pasteis you ate were those famous belem ones near the tower and monestary...i had 4 when i was there.
that does look like a neat city. and thanks for sharing your photos, the carmelite church is my favorite so far. by the way, this is a different emily. i never had pasteis in lisbon.
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