Walking around Lisbon

When I woke up this first thing I did was check my phone to see f the baggage people had been trying to ring me. No such luck. I put back on the underwear that I had carefully hand washed the previous evening, despite being not quite dry and redressed in my clothes of the previous day. Muttering to myself unhappily, we headed out to try and find a place to get some breakfast.

Rainbow over the Alfama, Portugal

We found a nice café full of locals not too far from us. They had scrumptious pastries and great coffee so the day was starting to look a little better. Next stop was a market where we could buy some provisions - milk, bread, cereal etc. the street behind our apartment has a number of shops that could fulfil our needs so we bought some things and returned home to dump them before heading out.

The view from our apartment, Alfama, Lisbon

I decided to ring about my bag seeing it was clear than no-one was going to ring me. 'Yes Mr Kemshal-Bell, we have found your bag' the woman on the other end of the line told me. Fantastic. 'When can I get it back?' It will arrive about 7.30 tonight so we will ring you when it arrives.' Now the day was really getting on track.

Buoyed by this news we headed out for a walk down towards the Baixa district - the main part of town. We were looking for a tourist information office where we could get a map and ask a few questions. This proved more difficult that it sounds, but eventually we found one.

We took an elevator (funicular) to the Barrio Alto district and enjoyed the view back over the town as best we could. Unfortunately although there is a fantastic park overlooking the whole of the town, the entire park was fenced off and undergoing renovation.

We found an excellent small café for lunch, brimming with locals. The menu consisted of a hand written note in the window showing what the Pratos del dia (plates of the day) were. We went in and took a punt on some of the items. None of the waiters had any English and I had left my Portuguese phrase book at the apartment so the best we could do was guess. We ordered some delicious fish and some ordinary 'bife' (steak). The meal was good value and hearty food though.

There is a nice park at the top of the hill and the girls took the chance to play on some of the equipment, enjoying the sunshine and the warmer weather.

Not quite sure what to do, we walked back down hill through the Barrio Alto district but missing the more interesting bits I think, because we ended up walking along some fairly uninteresting streets until we got back to the Baixa district.

Tired and a little bit disappointed with what we had seen (or failed to see), we stopped at a pastileria for coffee and meringues. These were delicious and gave us the sugar boost we needed to walk the rest of the way home. Stopping for some supplies for dinner along the way, we made it home by in plenty of time for the good news about my suitcase. I made us some dinner at home, whish was a pleasant change and then I waited for a call. None came, so I called them.

No answer.