Lisbon

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We arrived in Lisbon by car, we drive our rental car to the airport and turn it in. We read driving in Lisbon is not a good idea. We took a taxi to our hotel, only 10 euros. We walked around looking for a store and a restaurant. We found a small store and bought cereal, milk, water and bananas. We prefer to eat a light breakfast in our room instead of eating out. We are hungry but we had a hard time finding a restaurant open, it was too early only six so we settled on the only place open and it was not great. We were happy to find the hotel had left us a small bottle of 10 year aged port in our room, how nice.

This morning we headed to the metro station near our hotel. We bought a travel card and loaded it with 10 euros. We bought the travel card at the metro station, it was nice and easy. Our first stop of the day was Castelo de Sao Jorge (Saint George Castle). We got off at the Rossio metro stop, in the square above the station was a outdoor market with food only, mostly ham, bacon, cheeses, bread and honey. You could also buy pork sandwiches. I tasted some cheese, I was tempted to buy the cheese flavored with chili but I do not know if I can take it on the plane and I would not want to have it taken away at the airport. We walked all around the streets surrounding the castle before we found the entrance. The streets were decorated and it was obvious a party had gone on the night before. It turns out the month of June is a celebration of St Anthony. The castle was very interesting with lots of views of the city and a small museum. The only issue would be if you can not handle stairs there are a lot of them. We spent three hours at the castle then headed out to find lunch. We headed to a pizza restaurant but when we arrived it was closed, always closed on Mondays, darn we were in the mood for something without fish. We headed to the cathedral and stopped for gellato on the way. Once at the cathedral we found a mass was about to start. The choir was singing and the church was decorated with beautiful flowers and all the candles were lit. We walked around and took pictures, spent a few minutes listening to the choir before leaving. Outside the cathedral called the Se, police were blocking the road. I asked a policeman what was going on, he said a procession was about to start from the church next to the Se. I noticed people waiting outside the church, most people had flowers and vendors were selling flowers and religious statues. I bought a flower and we entered the church. A sign directed us to the birth place of St Anthony. We followed the signs and found ourselves in a line heading down to the crypt and birthplace, two women were there, one selling flowers and the other collecting money to kiss a St. Anthony religious article, I donated my money but only touched the item, I hate to kiss something a line of strangers has kissed. Outside the church was a fire and lots of large candles burning, we saw this at Fatima too. I threw my flower at the statue of Saint Anthony and headed to Rua Augusta the longest pedestrian street in Lisbon. We started at the end near the bay, we found a outdoor viewing venue for Europe Soccer Cup. There was a large screen and seating, beer was being sold so we joined the crowd had a beer and watched the end of the Spain verses Czech Republic, Spain won. After scoccer we bought a few items from street vendors, bought a potato with cod and onions, a pastry and we split a sandwich. We head back to the hotel by metro tired and ready to watch some more scoccer on TV.

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