Goodbye Portugal
30 October 2017 | Lisbon, Portugal
still nice and sunny!
Goodbye Portugal You’ve Been Fun!
Before we leave for Spain we made one more trip into Lisbon with our Host and her aunt Ana to try and see a few more sites we had not made it to yet. Our last trip out sight seeing we found a whole 'nother cosmopolitan side of Lisbon with an Expo Center, gondolas along the malacon, huge shopping malls and sky scraping futuristic buildings. On today's trip we first we went to the National Coach Museum. Talk about decadence, these coaches dating back to the 1600’s were like rolling gold statures! For me I found myself thinking about the hungry people that must have watched these things coming down the road. Next we headed over to the Portugal Marine Museum. With My interest in sailing this place was like a sail boat wonderland. The museum traces sailing vessels evolving from simple river barges with a sail to open ocean explorers, the on-vent of combined steam and sail and finally giving way to diesel powered ocean goers. Next we headed over to taste the famous Lisbon pastry the Pasties de Belem. The line at this place is constant. Inside the restaurant is a maize of dining rooms completely full with people standing around waiting to grab a seat and seating says 400 available. The “De Nada” is a cream tart that is not as sweet as what we have in the US but they were very good. Raquel then drove us around Lisbon to see the places tourists don’t go to including a night club that features paintings of naked women everywhere, a stripper pole, florescent lights, a “toy” store and is reported to have standing room only on Friday and Saturday nights. It was a strange place. We finally headed home feeling that we had seen a good part of Lisbon, Porto and got to now a little more of Portugal than the passing tourist. Stayed tuned and don’t forget to look at the pictures of these sites in the gallery.