Lisbon, Part 2

Right outside the church, in the square, is a little hole in the wall place considered the oldest and most authentic purveyor of Ginginha in Lisbon. This is a cherry liquor, sold for about $1.50 a shot, that is considered a national drink in Portugal. We each had to try a shot, of course. Very sweet, rather potent.

I don't know if we should blame the liquor or the busy hours of sightseeing, but we were feeling rather tired by now, so took a ride around the full loop of one of the old trollies, just to be able to sit down and take in the sights. After that, we went back to the hostel to relax a bit, before setting off again.

The funicular up the steep hill to Bairro Alto (the upper city) is just down the block from our hostel. We rode to the top for another wonderful view of the city from a different (slightly lower) hilltop. This area dates from post-1755 earthquake, so the houses are only (ONLY) 250 years old, or so.

We skipped the Port Wine Institute because it was a little classier than we were in our travel clothes, and walked on to the Cervejaria da Trindade. This used to be a monastery, but though Portugal is very Catholic, it has had a love-hate relationship with religious orders and shut most of them down in the early 1800s. This one became, perhaps, the world's first craft brew pub. We stopped in for glasses of the Sagres Preta, a pretty decent Portugese replica of a porter.

From there we walked on to Largo do Carmo, a square lined by the headquarters and museum of National Guard, and focal point of the "Carnation Revolution" of 1974 that transformed Portugal from a dictatorship to a democracy. Also here are the ruins of the Convent do Carmo, another monument to the 1755 earthquake.

There is an elevator here that was built by a student of Gustav Eiffel (as in Eiffel Tower in Paris), that would have dropped us within a couple blocks of our hostel. But still feeling chipper after our brief rest, we walked down, past Cafe a Brasileira -- a coffee house that was a hub for Bohemian poets in the 1920s and maintains that decor. It's still a "happening" neighborhood, with live music in the streets.

After another R&R break at the hostel, we took the elevator back up to a nice restaurant we had spotted. It was raining by now, and restaurants do not begin serving until at least 7 p.m. So we splurged on a bottle of Portugese vino tinto (red wine, not bad for the price of 11 euro, or about $12) served with bread and olives. That helped us kill time until we could order what turned out to be a very good meal. Sea food is great and cheap here.