Lisbon - Part 2

I had every intention of completing my Lisbon posts last week - where does the time go these days? and I'm sure it'll only go faster over the next few weeks. However having had a restless night I'm up, wrapped up in a thick dressing gown with a coffee and Chris Evans on the radio to complete part 2
Thursday saw us exploring Lisbon, wandering down through the cobbled streets

and stopping for a coffee here at Cafe Brasileira. It's one of the oldest coffee houses in Lisbon, and with the sun shining and street artists performing it was certainly a place I could have spent a couple of hours at.

A bronze statue of Fernando Pessoa, the Portugese poet sits outside, many tourists joined him at his table to have their picture taken whilst we were there.

But onwards and downwards in our case as we made our way to Praça do Comércio, passing a florists with flowers overflowing onto the pavement

and beautiful shop fronts

until we finally reached our destination - you can read about it's history here

After a wander round the square which is now surrounded with restaurants we carried as we were on our way to find a haberdashers mentioned in one of the guide books in our apartment. After leaving the square and walking for a few minutes we found not one but several shops in a row, all selling a huge selections of ribbons, buttons, cottons etc.

The shops had very small frontages but went back and back and back. As with often happens with me I get overwhelmed with all the goods inside and walk out without buying anything, but it was so nice to see shops like this as certainly round where I live there is a real lack of them. By now it was lunch time and we found a small cafe in a back street to sit outside and eat until the rain came!

After lunch we split up and whilst David and Angus went to explore the bars, Charlotte and I went to explore the shops. Re-grouping later we had an hour relaxing before hitting Barrio Alto's night life for food and drink. We started off in a bar called the Old Pharmacy

another wine bar with a huge amount of choice along with rather gorgeous 'nibbles'. 

At night it comes to life with the shelves being lit up with constantly changing colours

From there we wandered into a very small restaurant no bigger than a front room to have another meal of traditional Portuguese food.

We took the car up the west coast on Friday to check the beaches out for their suitability for surfing. We came across some pretty places with fabulous views.

It was warm enough to have lunch outside

 and afterwards a wander round Ericeira, a lovely place seaside town.

 Our final destination for the day was Sintra. It was quite late when we arrived and only had time for a short walk in the old town before we needed to get back to Lisbon, but here is a little flavour. Unfortunately the light was going and we didn't take many photos.

For us it was our final night so we chose to go back to the Old Pharmacy for pre-dinner drinks before we ate.

Although we were leaving the next day it wasn't till the evening so our plan was to go to the big 'flea market' know as Feira da Ladra - 'Thieves market' then have a late lunch before going to the airport early evening. We had intended to get the tram there but they were so busy we walked, a good move as it happened as we would have missed some of these sights.

The market was rather like a car boot sale and it's size meant you had to be very logical about how you walked round it to see it all.

being TinTin fans we just loved this suitcase

The following images are not ours as we were so busy looking at everything we forgot to take photographs.

 

You could get anything for the home somewhere there! On leaving we retraced our steps back to find somewhere to eat. 

We were very lucky as we had just finished when the heavens opened 

and we were forced to take shelter under the door canopy to finish the wine!

 We did get the tram back, a great experience - loved it!!

Unfortunately the rain didn't stop and this was the view from one of the shops we had to take shelter in after we had got off the tram.

 So thus ended our trip to Lisbon and although we didn't get inside the wedding venue (Charlotte and Angus did after we'd left and loved it and it is now provisionally booked for next September) we had a lovely few days and would certainly recommend it for a city break.

Till the next time xx