Thursday July 7th
After a relatively undisturbed night I awoke to the sound of activity in the Square outside my window. It was dark and I was too tired last night to bother much about the view from my room but it was a pleasant surprise to pull back the shutters and see this…….
What a charming lamp!
The square is called Praca Da Figueira and my hotel is named after it! Handily its smack in the middle of the City and Rossio Metro is just under my window so not far to walk then!
Anyway after a bit of breakfast in the hotels tiny dining room, I decided to go out in search of a proper cup of coffee!
It was actually very nice coffee ,and not a bearded hipster in sight (behind the counter anyway!). I sat for quite a while and enjoyed the comings and goings whilst searching for things to do nearby. After a while studying the map I realised I was quite close to the Hotel where Jayne and I stayed last time I was here so what better place to start than there… The Hotel Britania. Looks pretty unexciting really but it’s still number one on Trip Advisor although it’s prices have rocketed up to reflect that factThe hotel is situated just off the Avenue de Liberdade which is the main Avenue running through the centre of Lisbon and home to all the big designer shops,si I took a stroll along here and ended up at the Elevador da Gloria – Gloria’s Funicular railway basically……
This was the inside of the carriage as I got on after a 5 minute wait. The funicular is not the longest journey I’ve ever made and if you happened to doze off for a couple of minutes whilst waiting for the thing to actually depart (15 minutes after boarding for me!) Then you would miss all the action! It’s an exciting journey however and climbs a very steep hill up to the Old Town , which can only be a good think in.my eyes! I did a video of this and here it is (hopefully!)
Once at the top of this transport of delight I was hoping to visit a little Jesuit Church I had read about but rather inconveniently the old Jesuits were in the middle of a Service and so my entry was barred! What a liberty! They’ve obviously got no idea about commercial opportunity those Jesuits! Faced with this let down I wandered through an entrance festooned with banners and posters just next door to the Church and got as far as the entrance to what I imagined was a museum of some sort only to be sharply rebuked and turned away by an armed guard! He then got on his radio to give the girl on the front desk (who had let me wander in through!) A jolly good dressing down! He then led me back past her to the front door and with a glance at her with severely raised eyebrows he threw me back out where I clearly belong! I enquired at this point what it was I had wandered into and was told it was the draw for their National Lottery or something like that! What a load of balls!
I wandered the streets round here heading towards the sea front back down the hill in the other direction and finally reached my destination for lunch – The Mercado Ribiera ,kindly sponsored by Time Out magazine. I had read a lot about this place and was pleased to see it was pretty much as described – a big old market hall full of all sorts of different food stalls from which you can order your meal and then sit wherever you choose.Ideal for the lone diner! I walked around the whole place and of course ended up at the first place I’d seen – a very nice little fishy counter which seemed quite popular. I found a seat at the counter and placed my order for tuna and sweet potato fries.As tends to happen in these situations, I soon got talking to the lady next to me as we compared notes on our different choices. Turned out that Mary was in Lisbon at a conference about something to do with poetry I think and was contemplating the afternoons “workshop” on something g to do with Angola!! Her friend was apparently heavily involved in this and she felt duty bound to attend. She is obviously quit leaving some friend! Anyway she was an interesting person and we spent a very pleasant half hour discussing the merits of our very different home towns. She was from Brooklyn New York and was most impressed with my tales of old Grantham Town!! I began to feel like I was in an episode of “Friends” as she talked about Brooklyn and her problems with purchasing ” real estate”!
After a while Mary the New Yorker rushed off to her Angolan Poetry workshop in downtown Lisbon, and excitingly I had a Chocolate Ice cream! She didn’t even have the common courtesy to invite me along!
So after my very pleasant I’ve cream I caught the metro back to Rossio and cooled down and rested back at my hotel before an early start for the evenings festivities at Nos Alive.
Lisboa Alone 