Lisbon Day 1

April 5, 2024

Overcoming jet lag by eating pasteis de nata

Our overnight flight from Toronto was completely full. To me, it looked like lots of retired Canadian heading out on vacation - that’s us too, other than Leslie, who is still keeping the economy going and will work one more day before joining us. Our flight boarded on time, but then left almost an hour late because of the need for de-icing and adding extra fuel. We made up most of the lost time during the flight.

I felt like I didn’t get much sleep, but suppose I must have dozed for a lot of the journey, because I missed dinner, which was served at about midnight Toronto time (9 pm BC time/6 am Lisbon time). I don’t need a chicken dinner at any of those times, so am happy I was asleep.

Our arrival in the perfect midday weather of Lisbon was uneventful. Under Betty’s leadership, we ate our first pasteis de nata (custard tarts) before leaving the airport. We’re on a quest to eat as many as possible. Apparently Pastel = singular, Pasteis = plural. To keep things simple, we stuck to plural purchases. 😋

Needing energy for our taxi ride, our first custard tart was consumed before leaving the airport.

We taxied to our hotel, the City Hotel Lisbon. It’s not fancy, but it’s fine. The location is great - it's on a metro route and is a nice walk to the busier tourist areas. They let us check in early, which is always appreciated.

Our Lisbon hotel. Wendy and I had a balcony.

Bike paths into the heart of Lisbon. It's a hilly city, so cyclists had better be fit.

After a quick cleanup, we headed out on the town and had time for some self-guided walking before starting our food tour at 4:30. There were no pasteis de nata on the food tour, so we sampled more on our own. Warm from the oven is the best. Yum! They blew the airport tarts out of the water.

We met up with our Colombian/Spanish/Portuguese food tour guide Pedro at 4:30 pm in Rossio Square near the statue of Pedro IV of Portugal, who was confusingly also known as Pedro I of Brazil. Our Pedro was an excellent guide - he is a structural engineer doing his Ph.D., working for UNESCO and obsessed with history, food, and old buildings.

The captivating and somewhat nauseating tilework at Lisbon's Rossio Square.

He led us through the nearby Igreja de São Doming (The Church of St. Dominic) even though it wasn’t on the tour itinerary. The church was dedicated in 1241 and has been through more than its share of disasters, including the earthquakes of 1531 and 1755, and a huge fire in 1959. It was also the site of a terrible massacre of 'New Christians' in 1506 - these were Jews who has been forced to convert to Catholicism and had been forbidden to leave the country, but were resented by other members of the population who were suspicious of their true beliefs. We will never learn, I don't think.

They left evidence of the fire during restoration. And also left the roof red as a sign of blood shed during the massacre in the 1500s.

On that cheery note, I'll pivot to describing the more fun elements of our tour - all the things we ate and drank over the course of three hours at a variety of locations.

Starting off the tour with a shot of ginjinha, a sour cherry brandy, complete with wee sour cherries in each glass. That's our guide wearing the hat.

Note that the fellow drinking water isn't nearly as hale as the guy drinking ginjinha. The message is clear - drink liquor for your health.

Pastéis de bacalhau (salt cod fritters) and vinho verde (young white wine with low alcohol content and barely noticeable bubbles). The Portuguese have a very generous pouring standard - right to the rim. I think this was my favourite stop for both food and drink.

Next, we sat outdoors and had a small beer with a roasted pork sandwich with piri piri sauce on very good bread.

Tricia and Anne, known in the rest of this blog as 'Canadian Anne'.

Our final stop was to enjoy a glass of red wine with charcuterie, including a sardine, chourico, bread, goat cheese, and preserves.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the tour, including the guide and the other guests.

We walked back to our hotel, arriving just before 9 pm. I was happy to have survived the day without a nap. Although we didn't bike today, we did walk almost 15 km. I was sound asleep before 10 pm.

Betty still had energy and stayed up later than the rest of us. Here's the Lisbon waterfront at sunset. We never did make it across the bridge.

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Rachael AndersonYou sure had a busy day and a lot of walking! It should help you adjust to the time difference. I’m always so tired when I arrive to do much of anything.
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