Lisbon Calling

... locally famous comfort food of cod-fish in a custard-type baked casserole topped with ripe olives dotting the surface. We also shared a green salad with tuna, boiled eggs, tomatoes and onion -- rather like a modified salad nicoise. Dan wanted to try one more patisserie on our way back to the hotel and chose Nationale Patisserie d'Lisbon that had been in business since 1829. We brought 3 pastries back to the hotel and just finished ...

... on display were whole, any inscriptions or pictures were perfectly clear, and it really caught our attention and we all commented on how impressed we were by it. A week or so after being in Lisbon, I met a guy from Lisbon. He informed me that the founder of the museum was a rich Albanian who had moved to Portugal in order to escape the war in Albania. Good to know since I kept referring to it (including to the guy from Lisbon) as the ...

... way home we stumbled on a really nice view point where we could see all of Lisbon, so we relaxed there for a while before heading home.

We got up the next day and headed to the train station where we jumped on a train to Cascias, a beach town 30 mins from Lisbon. The beach wasn’t that great (bit of a let-down from what we had heard)and it was really crowded so we decided not to swim. Instead we walked around the town, spent AGES at the post office sending ...

... Portugese history. Walk down the stairs of the monestary you can see the Monument to discoveries which was built to honor Prince Henry the navigator and sits along the Tagus river. The monument is an enormus rock sculpture of a ship with the faces of sailors comming from it. Both of these mouments are located in Belem which is techinally a suburb of Lisbon just 4 miles outside of the city center. Down the road from both of these monestarys is the pastelais de belem, which is a ...

... snak. Az őrtorony csúcsán a golyók az indiából hozott borsot jelképezik, a pajzsokat pedig Krisztus keresztje díszíti. Az egész bástya Manuelin stílusban épült, a kőfaragások között sok hajózós témájú van, pl. hajókötél. Fel lehet menni bele, de annyira keskeny és kanyargós a lépcső, hogy a turisták minduntalan egymásnak ütköznek. Valakinek vissza kell tolatni. Én ordibáltam, amikor ráléptem a lépcsőre, részint mert féltem hogy leesek, másrészt hogy hallják lentről, hogy ...

... of good restaurants! This is where Melanie learned to eat grilled sardines and Chris had his first taste of the local meat specialty - pork with clams. Melanie thought she'd get to eat the clams because Chris always claims to dislike seafood, but alas Chris found these to his liking and Melanie had to be satisfied with her sardines. As in Lisbon, we encountered very friendly service with a waiter who didn't have anything better to do than talk ...

... Quinta del Regaleria" which was the vacation of the royal family built in the early 1900's. Not only was the house totally awesome, with wood floors AND celings. But it had an amazing grounds behind it that included a chapel, art workshop, lakes, tunnles, circular wells that you could climb down and connect with tunnels. It was the 19th century version of a natural theme park. I actually think that the grounds of the palace were almost cooler than the Estate ...

... and a girl from Hawaii. Other than that, most of the people we met just looked liked a bunch of Lindsay Lohan wannabees to me. One of the highlights of our time in Seville was seeing a bunch of Flamenco shows. The first night we went to a small bar that opened after midnight. There was a fat, old couple that owned the place and a few of there friends who took turns performing. It was nothing professional, but a great time. The ...

Sao Jorge island is the longest island in the Azores. It looks like the spine of a half-submerged whale, albeit covered in thick foliage and trimmings of basaltic lava. 58 km long and a mere 5km wide, it's my most favourite island. It's different to pico volcano which lies across the channel: Sao Jorge island was formed by a series of eruptions from volcanic vents, starting in the east of the island and heading westward. Sao Jorgeans are the most welcoming of all the ...

... out and walking back in). After settling in we went for a walk around the town and around the fortifying wall. The town was surrounded by wineries, and the whole town was visible from above on the wall. That night as we had had a big lunch, and weren't hungry we got a bottle of local wine, and had the parmigianno regiiano I had brought, and some tomatoes on crackers in front of the olympics - a town of 800 does not have a thriving night life.