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Old town Lisbon and the Museum of Beer…

As much fun as we had in the Oriente area of Lisbon, I knew we needed to go to the old part of the city to truly get a taste for Lisbon.  Bill and I decided to take the metro to get to that area.  But first, I needed to find a post office, so I could drop a couple of postcards in the mail to a friend.  As luck would have it, there is a big post office in the train/bus/metro station in the Oriente area.  After we mailed the postcards, we went to the metro area and tried to figure out Lisbon’s subway system.  As it turns out, it’s not all that intuitive.  The ticket machines are not in English.  Bill ended up asking an attendant, who was very helpful and told us which trains we needed to take and the correct stop to get off on in order to be downtown.  It wasn’t too hard to get from Oriente to Rossio, but I must say, it was quite an interesting change of pace.

The area around the Rossio stop is nothing at all like the Oriente area.  As we emerged from the underground, it was like we had entered a new world.  Suddenly, all the buildings were old and a bit grimy.  A large castle sat on a hillside and there were many people begging for money.  It seemed a lot more like Europe.

Roasted chestnuts

We saw several people selling roasted chestnuts around the main square.  We walked down a crowded boulevard and ended up at yet another large plaza near the waterfront.  Guents Dy Rincon, A band from Cape Verde was playing music.  I was entertained, so I took a couple of photos.  The young black man dancing approached me and asked if I wanted to buy a CD for ten euros.  We ended up getting one because I like buying music from street performers.  The music is described as “spiritual traditional acoustic music”.  I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but I liked what I heard them do live, so I’m sure I’ll like it.

Someone else shot this video and posted it on YouTube.  This is Guents Dy Rincon.

Another example of their music, shot by a different YouTuber.

The following photos are scenes of the old town area of Lisbon.

I took these two nighttime shots of the castle with different settings on my camera.  We had a beautiful full moon!

After we listened to the band and watched a guy in a wheelchair wheel himself backwards at a very high speed, we wandered over to what was advertised as a “Museum of Beer”.  On the way there, we heard a couple of vastly inferior street musicians trying to cover Bob Marley’s “Jamming” and doing a pretty piss poor job of it.  I was ready for beer by the time we reached the building, which turned out to be part small beer museum, part restaurant, and part bar.  For three euros, you get to see the exhibit, which includes a small beer sample and information about Portugal’s beer culture.  The Museum of Beer only offers beers from Portugal or Portuguese speaking countries like Brazil and Angola.  I was surprised not only by how good the beer was, but by how widespread Portugal’s influence has been.  The exhibit wasn’t large, but it was very interesting.  I’m glad we made time for it.

Here’s an interesting article about this museum…

Bill poses with a “monk” in the museum exhibit.

Part of the beer exhibit.  It was interesting, but I was much more inclined to hit the bar and drink some beer.

Sagres blonde on draft.

Sagres dark on draft.

Bill decides if he wants a draft or bottled beer.  The museum offers local beers on tap and bottled beers from other Portuguese speaking countries in bottles.  They also have very cool glasses that I kind of wish I’d bought for our own collection. 

A shot of the bar area…

I think the bartender got a kick out of us because we sure drank our fair share.  I knew I would regret it on the way back to Oriente, especially since none of the metro stations seemed to have any restrooms, even though they did have shops and cafes.  Needless to say, the trains didn’t have potties either.  Kind of made me miss Germany, where the S Bahns usually have facilities, even if they aren’t the most sanitary.

iPhone versions of the castle…

On the way back to Oriente, I really had to pee…  I kind of felt like this guy as I pranced back to the metro.  

 

I got a kick out of the notice at the bottom of the page of this menu, warning against alcohol abuse.  It was on every page…  Unfortunately, it didn’t work for me.  The Museum of Beer did me in.

Dessert!

 

All in all, we enjoyed Lisbon.  I wouldn’t mind going back, though I’d probably stay in a different part of the city.  When we got back to the hotel room, we decided it was time to go to Spain.  After a quick dinner at the Hippopotamus Restaurant at the hotel, we booked cheap tickets on an early flight on Air Europa to Madrid and two nights at Hotel Atlantico.

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aquariums

Lisbon’s Oceanarium…

Located near our hotel was Lisbon’s fabulous Oceanarium.  It’s an outstanding facility and as I am a fan of aquariums, I figured we should take the time to visit.  I’m so glad we did.  I learned a lot from the few hours we spent there, along with a couple of school groups.  There’s a permanent exhibit there as well as a temporary sea turtle exhibit.  To see both, which I highly recommend, you pay 16 euros.  To just see the permanent exhibit, it’s 13 euros.

The Oceanarium on the horizon…

We visited the turtle exhibit first, since it was on the way to the permanent exhibit.  Having spent three years in South Carolina, I had heard a lot about loggerhead turtles and how they are becoming somewhat endangered due to man’s encroachment on the turtles’ habitat.  The oceanarium had a few loggerhead exhibits.  They also had sea turtles, which they were rehabilitating and planned to release back into the wild.  These turtles were mostly caught by accident and injured in the process.

 

This explains more about how the turtles came to the exhibit.  As you can see, quite a few have already been released.

The exhibit had a plexiglass floor that we had to walk over.  One elderly Portuguese woman seemed afraid she would fall through the glass.

Growing up near the water in Virginia, I have seen plenty of these…

A turtle swims with the fishes!

Ready for a close up!

It was fun to observe the turtles.

We moved on to the permanent exhibit, which was surprisingly large and took a lot of time to fully appreciate.

The big central tank.

You could watch this for hours and not see the same thing twice.

A ray swims among schools of fish…

Puffin exhibit.

A puffin gives me a great action shot…

These three penguins seemed to be posing!

The next exhibit was the sea otters.  There were two of them; they were both female and delightfully cute.  I could tell they were a popular attraction, though they didn’t seem especially interested in putting on a show.

Information about the sea otters.

Penguins!  I had no idea how fast they can move!

The rest of these photos are from the many exhibits throughout the oceanarium.  There were great displays featuring everything from frogs, newts, and other amphibians, to sharks, barracudas, and eels.  There were also interactive displays and a kids’ area which offered hands on exhibits for little ones.

As you can see, there’s a lot to look at.  Fortunately, photography is allowed, though you’re not supposed to use your flash.  I didn’t, but still came away with some amazing pictures.  The oceanarium offers a film about what goes on there and they types of research they’re doing.  There are subtitles and I highly recommend watching the film, since it’s not very long and is very interesting.  They show how sea animals are cared for at the facility and even explain how surgeons can sew up injuries when the creatures are hurt.  If you ever get to Lisbon and like aquariums, I highly recommend the Oceanarium.  It’s reasonably priced and you will learn a lot from a three hour visit.

As we left the facility, we had to walk through the gift shop.  There is also a cafe.  I bought a few things at the shop and we were stopped by a young guy doing a survey for the Oceanarium.  We answered his questions, then moved on to our next fun activity, the funicular.  It’s located very close to the Oceanarium and is very reasonably priced.  A round trip ticket for both of us was twelve euros.

I got a kick out of the rules…

Up, up, and away!

Bill enjoys the view…

I think “no smokers” has a very different meaning than “no smoking” does.

A shot of the Oceanarium as we passed.

The huge bridge leading out of Lisbon.

Oriente skyline…

The Portuguese flag…

After our funicular ride, we had lunch at an Irish pub, where we enjoyed Irish beers.  The meal was decent, but unremarkable… except for the Irish whiskey chocolate mousse at the end…  I did like the signs, though.

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Off to Lisbon…

We had a morning flight out of Lajes to Lisbon and we needed to return our rental car.  Fortunately, the Lajes airfield and the tiny commercial airport are situated right next to each other.  It was a simple matter to drive to the airport, park the car in the rental lot, and drop off the keys at the rental car office.

We flew to Lisbon on TAP Portugal.  We had a surprisingly nice flight.  The nice thing about Portugal’s airline is that they don’t charge extra to check bags.  They also don’t charge for the surprisingly edible snack or wine they give you on the flight.  After we checked our bags and went through a very laid back security checkpoint, we sat down to wait for our flight out of Lajes.  I turned on my iPhone and was delighted to note that the airport offered free WiFi.  In fact, the cafe and bar we visited on Lajes also offered free WiFi, which was pretty awesome.  We did not find that anywhere else on our trip.

Probably one of the best food offerings I have ever had on an airplane.  Everything tasted good and we didn’t have to pay extra for it.  The sandwich had lettuce and hummus on it and the bread was very fresh.  There was a small bottle of mango compote, and of course white wine and water.  Bill enjoyed the red wine.

We were slightly delayed getting out of Lajes, but our trip out was pretty nice.  TAP Portugal used an Airbus 330 and it was only about half filled.  Unfortunately, the wind was high on our descent and some poor lady sitting two rows ahead of us ended up puking.  I didn’t see or hear her do it and thankfully, I didn’t smell the evidence, either.  Bill witnessed it, though, and said it was looking pretty serious for a moment.  I wondered why her companion was so urgently ringing for a flight attendant.  I think it was because she was about to fill the barf bag.

As we were flying east, I read the airline’s magazine, which had an article about a very interesting program TAP Portugal offers in conjunction with healthcare professionals.  The airline has a program for people who are afraid to fly which includes therapy and even a flight to and from Lisbon and Madrid.  I thought that was a very innovative way for them to help people overcome their fears and score some new customers.

Magazine article about flight anxiety program.

 

The flight lasted about two hours.  We left sunny skies in The Azores and arrived in Lisbon to clouds and drizzle.  Bill and I were briefly separated when he was prevented from getting on the same people mover bus I got on because it was full.  Then, once we arrived at the terminal, I had to visit the ladies’ room, so he ended up getting ahead of me.  Lisbon’s airport is surprisingly large and I felt like I had to walk my ass off to get to baggage claim!  You end up walking through a very glitzy mall like area, too.  There are many restaurants there and lots of very high end retail stores, including an airport version of Harrod’s.

Once we picked up our bags, we got a taxi and went to the Tivoli Oriente Hotel.  This hotel is part of a chain and located in Lisbon’s business district and the area of the 1998 Expo.  Though it was a nice enough hotel, it’s important to remember that you won’t see old town Lisbon if you don’t hop on the metro and seek it out.  This area of the city is nothing like the older part, which we found to be a hotbed of activity.  Also, because the Tivoli is a business hotel, there are surcharges galore.  We had to pay 30 euros for two days of Internet access.  I did read that you could join Tivoli’s loyalty program and get those charges waived, but no one at the hotel told us about that and I never got around to asking.

These were all over the area near our hotel.

The Scorpions are coming to Lisbon!

The first night, we walked around the Oriente area and ended up in a huge Portuguese shopping mall located very close to our hotel.  We went all the way to the top level, where there was a “beer deck” and several restaurants.  It was still kind of early, so we went into a place that looked kind of like a Portuguese version of Legal Sea Foods.  There was only one other couple in the place.  They appeared to be German.

It was a good thing I had read a couple of Epinions reviews of Portugal before we sat down.  It was one reviewer’s negative review of Portugal that clued me in on a local practice that some Americans may find odd.  In Portugal, when you sit down at a restaurant, the server will often bring entradas without being asked.  These are starters and if you look in your menu, you see that they have prices next to them.  When we sat down at this restaurant, sure enough, the waiter brought bread, crab dip, and octopus salad.  If you don’t touch these items, you won’t be charged for them.  But if you do dig in, there will be a modest charge.  We didn’t find dining out that expensive in either Portugal or Spain, but we did find that in Portugal, there aren’t any freebies.  You pay for everything, including the butter.

Anyway, neither Bill nor I were interested in the crab dip or the octopus salad.  What we wanted was beer.  I was also hoping for a local dish that had something in it that couldn’t be considered “junk food”.  I ended up ordering Portuguese bread soup with shrimp, while Bill got salted cod with potatoes and spinach.  Both portions were huge and we ended up eating them “family style”.  The bread soup was really not like any soup I’ve ever had.  The bread in it gave it the consistency of porridge and it was loaded with garlic.  It tasted good, though I couldn’t eat a lot of it because it was very filling.  The shrimp was delicious and a nice treat after all the fast food.  The spinach on Bill’s dish was good, too.

Bill enjoys the first of many Sagres beers we had on this trip.

Dinner…  The bread soup (asordo) was in the little copper pot.  

 

 

We did save room for dessert.  I had some delightful cheesecake and Bill had ice cream made with a beer reduction that was surprisingly excellent.

After we were finished eating, we wandered around a little more, then went back to the Tivoli Oriente to turn in.  I had big plans for the next day, which turned out to be pretty full.

If we hadn’t had fish, we could have hit the brewpub…

Or enjoyed some seafood…

 
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