5-17-11 Porto to Lisbon

          I enjoyed Porto.  It is a good sized city with a lot of history, good restaurants, not expensive and not very touristy. 

We departed Porto for Lisbon, with a stop for lunch at a roadside restaurant, and a stop in Fatima.   At Fatima, we saw a woman who was walking to the shrine across the wide plaza (larger than St Peters in Rome) on her knees (she wore knee pads), carrying a candle about 4 feet long.

In Lisbon, we arrived at our final hotel, the Ritz Four Seasons, which is the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in.  The gym is on the top floor, with a small running track around the roof perimeter, and a number of exercise machines.  There is also a swimming pool, but I didn’t have time to check it out.  Our 6^th floor room had a balcony, king bed, desk, sofa and coffee table, more closet space than our current bedroom.  The bathroom was larger than our masterbath, and made extensive use of marble, or something that looked like marble.

After our arrival, Ann, Joe, Marge, Teri and I walked down Av Da Liberdade, Lisbon’s main blvd, from the top, a couple of blocks from our hotel, to the bottom.  It took about 45 minutes, and was slightly downhill and on cobblestones, so at the end, my knees were aching and we needed to stop for a drink.  We stopped at one little café upon learning that beers were only 1.5 euros each. 

Dinner was on our own, at Restaurante Andorra, which our tour guide had on his list of recommended restaurants for Lisbon.  It is on a pedestrian only street just off the end of Av Da Liberdade.  This little street has a number of small restaurants, each with their pitch men or women on the street trying to talk people walking by into dining with them; it was a turn off, but since Andorra was on our list, we went in.  Marge and I shared a dish of prawns, clams, peppers, onions and potatoes in a roasted tomato based sauce, which was brought out in a copper clad oval shaped serving dish – it was very good.  Ann had sardines, Joe had a fish (cod?) and rice dish, and Teri had a salad and a seafood bisque.  All of the dishes were good. 

Our dinner serving dish

Our dinner