We had a breakfast of toast and Gouda slices with a few coffees on our little red chairs looking down on the narrow streets below and the people going by. Jives had local cucumber and tomato that we bought at the mart the day before. 

We headed out to see Lisbon in the daylight around 10am ish. We decided to not really have a plan, goal or direction and just wander around the steep roadways in the old quarter of Lisbon. We wandered up and down the streets, marvelling at all the colourful tiles and street art. We stopped at quite a few lovely vantage points for views over the city and down to the waterfront. 

There were alleyways draped in fuchsia bougainvillea, one of my favourite plants I associate with travelling in Asia. 

There were a lot of lovely collage art pieces all over town, which I loved.

We stopped at one vantage point to have a cappuccino and watch the tuk tuks/ old timey cars go by. The narrow streets in this neighbourhood also had street cars running down them. All sorts of traffic ran side by side on the narrow roadways in a functional chaotic way.

The sky was clear and blue and it was about 27 degrees celsius, the most perfect weather of the trip.

We climbed up the steep roadways to the castle/citadel in the old town where every tourist was. We felt overwhelmed by the crowds and left without going in to see the castle. 

We later found a lovely view of the citadel from a vantage point “Miradouro da Graca” and “Jardim da Cerca da Graca”… honestly it might be even better than going into the crowded citadel area. 

We briefly walked around the Moorish Quarter, but felt a little sketchy so we climbed 

“Murales Caracol da Graca” and marvelled at the lovely street art, stopping at the top for a beer and a spinach egg tart to reward ourselves for all the tough climbs. 

The view from this little stop was fantastic! You could also see three massive cruise ships in the harbour, which probably accounted for all the crowds at the Citadel. It sort of sullied the view down to the water a bit. 

We then went back to our place and tried a donkey branded wine on our little red chairs. We then had an early dinner directly outside our door at a mom and pop place called “Taberna dos Clerigos”. I had read reviews saying that the owners were cold to tourists so I was super prepared to order in my closest approximation of Portuguese (I wanted to try my best to not make the owners uncomfortable while serving us). We were the only ones at the restaurant probably due to the early dinner time. I ordered a salmon plate for Jives and a sardine plate for myself. I honestly ordered wrong, but agreed to keep the situation easy. We also ordered a small bottle of red wine to share. The pop suggested a different wine, and we quickly agreed. He returned to open the bottle for us and the ma served us an appetizer of hard cheese and some cod and potato croquettes. Both were delicious! I could see the lady set to work grilling our fish. It took awhile, but we were in no rush! Our food arrived and it was amazing! I received four sardines, two boiled and salted potatoes and a lettuce, onion and tomato salad with oil and vinegar to add. The flavours were perfect! Jives loved his salmon too with potato and salad to accompany it as well. We both agreed that this was probably the best meal of the trip. We then paid the bill, which came to 38 euro, we gave her 45 euro as the meal had been so good! I love that we pushed past our anxiety and had dinner at this place. The lady was not grumpy at all as many google reviews had said, just very Portuguese, (I feel as if working for Portuguese bosses for 15 years and living next to an older Portuguese man for 12 years has been training for this moment. I am NOT calling them grump, just an often prickly surface layer!) 

After our meal we went for a brief night time walk before bed, down to the port where the last of the cruise ships was departing. Along the way we stopped to try a cherry liquor from a lady that was selling it on the street. The lady was a sweet heart, and told me the drink was made with “small cherries, grappa, cinnamon” and one more ingredient. I swear she said “cigarette” but Jives insists she said “secret”. She was heavily chain smoking…. 

We then walked to Lisbon Cathedral to marvelled at the architecture before heading back to our room for an early night.