Our plan for today was to take the classic Tram 28 through Alfama and past the castle. We walked over to the starting point for the tram and discovered that even though in theory it runs every ten minutes, we had to wait 27 minutes for the next tram. It also dawned on us that it was a warm day and the tram was small, crowded, and not air conditioned. This is not a recipe for a good time. And that was when Jan said “let’s walk”. Sound familiar???

But this time there was something different. something lovely.

Before you get too excited, the escalator was nice, but it wasn’t like this all the way. But it helped. We also decided it was another day for random exploration. We turned off the GPS (mostly) and just wandered. The basic strategy was “go uphill” since the castle was at the top of the hill. Not a perfect strategy, but when the primary goal is to experience the old city of Lisboa, you don’t need an airtight plan. After the escalators there was a lot of walking uphill along the streets, and they all had cobblestones. Lovely to look at, but hard on the feet of flatlanders.

This is why we were so pleased that we found a hidden route to our apartment, going through the Metro station, with four sets of escalators rather than stairs, stairs, and more stairs. But that was for later.

Back to our walk to the castle. At the beginning we largely had the streets to ourselves, and enjoyed the quiet and the art works. This wall had ceramic pieces embedded in the wall. I’m not sure what the point was (reading Portuguese probably would have helped) but it was still cool.

I loved this one too. An ugly antenna was turned into an unusual piece of art.

And in many ways, even the cobblestone roads were beautiful. There was very little traffic up here, and plants were growing between the cobblestones, creating a lovely pattern.

Eventually our wandering converged with the “correct” path to the castle, and suddenly we no longer had the road to ourselves. But even here, when you looked up the side streets you could see the locals going about their lives. Note the laundry hung out to dry.

And as always, we are drawn to the tile art on the building walls.

Eventually we arrived at the entrance to the castle, where we discovered a long queue to buy tickets, and that is when we lost interest. Our goal was to wander, get exercise, and see a slice of Lisboa. Not wait in line for an hour with all the other tourists. I’m sure it would have been lovely, but… we decided it was time for lunch. But first, I’ll show you a picture that gives a sense of how far we climbed up … and then down. This is taken across the valley near our apartment, so it gives a sense of what we needed to climb on both sides. As the title suggests … sore feet … but loving it.

When we were in Lisboa two weeks ago, before our trip to Porto, we discovered a lovely little Portuguese restaurant near our hotel, and we decided to head there for lunch today. We ordered the lunch special with an appetizer, grilled fish, and a glass of wine, all for a very reasonable price. It was delicious.

When we were here the last time, it was full, but today we had the place to ourselves. Apparently this happens every November. Here is a view of the restaurant. It was originally a milk store of some sort, and all the decorations and tiles have been preserved inside and out.

This was in the window. I couldn’t resist.

On our way back to the apartment we spotted this on our street. I’m sure it wasn’t there earlier.

Jan decided to rest her feet for the afternoon while I, silly boy that I am, decided to check out the Beer Museum. Along the way there were more cobblestones.

And more interesting statues on the buildings.

And finally, the Beer Museum. I’m not going to bore you with the history of beer, but I am going to bore you with this picture of an old safe in one of the displays inside the museum.

I knew that the entrance ticket included a beer, but I figured it would be a taste of a bland local lager. But instead, they had a fridge with a wide, and very interesting, selection of Portuguese craft beers.

That complicated things, but one of the options was a Barleywine from Porto that was aged in port casks. They explained that technically it was from Gaia, which is across the river from Porto. Gaia is where all the port wine is aged. Having just visited Porto, I knew all of this, and because I have a weakness for strong beer, I went with that one. It was excellent.

The table has a map of Portugal etched into the surface, with all the beers labeled. I’m tempted to go again.

And for tomorrow … why bother predicting…