Lisbon/Lisboa: Part 1
Lisbon square from our hotel terrace
Lisbon or Lisboa as it is known in Portuguese, is made up of different neighborhoods. We are staying in the lower part of town called the Baixa. Our hotel is on one of the main squares and was built in 1917. It is a comfortable if not fading grand beauty. The rooms all seem to have at least 10 foot ceilings, antique furnishings, worn furniture (probably original or close to it) and in our case, a large terrace balcony. Ours has 3 sets of double french doors that open to the balcony and over looks the square although the trees in front block most of the view. The breakfast room is a grand room with a bar at the end and tables covered in white tablecloths. Very elegant. Although our hotel has seen better days, it is clean and fits into the old city we are visiting. You can imagine how it was in its early days.
Our room is on the 2nd floor here. In Europe the bottom level is the ground floor or floor 0 and so the 2nd floor is what in the US would be considered the 3rd floor.
For our first night’s dinner we went to the seaside and shared a turbot dinner for 2. I’m being more adventurous with fish on this trip than I normally would. In part because they have fish here we don’t normally see in the northwest. In this experience, fish is sold by the kilo and they bring you the raw fish for you to approve and tell you what the weight is so you can say yes or no. They take it away and cook it and when it is ready they wheel it out on a table. There they remove the bones, skin and other parts and present you with 2 plates of boneless, skinless fish. It was very nice.
Speaking of fish, I previously posted a photo of the House of Cod in Porto thinking it was weird to have a museum about cod. But, lo and behold, across the square from our restaurant here in Lisbon is yet another cod museum! BTW cod here is called bacalhau.
As I mentioned the square a few times, there are lots of squares here and each one has a statue and/or monument. Here are the scenes from the harbor square.
Statue at harbor square
Monument at the harbor square is the gateway into the “new” city. This is known as the Rua Augusta Arch and is the symbol of triumph of the city of Lisbon which was destroyed by an earthquake in 1775 and was reborn from the ashes. This makes the “new” city of Lisbon older than the formation of the United States.
The area around our hotel is vibrant. There are interesting things here that you don’t see too often such as an ornate elevator that takes people up to the old town…
Interesting old buildings with ornate carvings, tile and greenery…
And some things you see everywhere there is a port…
We plan to visit a few neighborhoods including Belem (the home of Portugal’s national treat), Barrio Alto (the old town up the hill) and Alfama (where the castle and churches are) as well as taking trips up the coast to Estoril (where spies and writers such as Ian Fleming stayed at the inspiration for Casino Royale) and to Sintra in the coming days.
