The Time Out Market

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We head for the Santa Justa lift, which from the distance looks like a very modern steel tower near the centre of city. On closer inspection it seems that it's a bit older than it looks. We read that it was opened in 1901, and was one of two similar structures built to make it easier for people to get up and down the steep hills on either side of the city; the other one's since been demolished. There's a long queue to board it, and we remember the man from the apartment rental company telling us that we could climb the streets behind it and get almost the same view, so we decide to run with that instead. We head up into the aptly named Barrio Alto - the High Neighbourhood.

We reach a square with a statue of a man in the middle of it. Issy says that it's actually a street performer in a costume; she says that if anyone goes to touch him he'll suddenly burst into life and the toucher will then probably be in need of medical assistance. I'm not so sure. I think it might actually be a statue. We notice a group of Scottish people standing next to us, and they're having the same debate .... at least we think they are; their accents are so strong it's hard to be absolutely sure they're even speaking English. Curiosity's got the better of one of them. He walks slowly towards the figure and then very tentatively stretches his hand out to touch it. A crowd has now assembled to watch the spectacle. It seems that it really is a statue, or at least if it's not then someone probably needs to call an undertaker. I wonder how many times a day this happens. We start to think it might have been put there specifically for the locals to amuse themselves watching idiot tourists.

The square's quite small, but there seems to be a lot going on here. Front and centre is a man wielding a large video camera. Some of his assistants are holding white screens to reflect the light, while others try to herd bystanders away from the action. The star of the show's wearing a suit, and we suspect he's probably a candidate for the upcoming mayoral elections. The support cast is queued up in front of a small stall, although I'm fairly sure they're not actually buying anything. Issy says that these guys have been carefully chosen to represent particular groups in society that the campaign's trying to target. I'm not so sure. There are only two of them - an older man in a white suit, and a young girl in a very casual dress, which seems like quite a limited cross section. The director calls "action" and the star walks purposefully across the square. But wait. It seems that he's not walked quite purposefully enough. The director yells "cut" and everyone returns to their original positions. Meanwhile more onlookers have gathered, and the struggle to keep them away from the action is now starting to look like a losing battle. I wonder why the crew didn't think to put up barricades; then again maybe barricades aren't a good look in political advertisements - people probably generally associate them with dictators and jails packed with dissidents. The star walks purposefully across the square again, and the director now seems happy. The two members of the support cast still haven't bought anything from the stall; I hope the owner's being adequately compensated for his lost earnings. ... and the star still doesn't seem to have uttered even a single word. Hopefully there are a lot of votes in purposeful walking.

We continue up the hill. We reach the viewing point .... well we would have if the area below it wasn't currently a construction site with barriers all around it blocking any potential vistas. Hmmmm.

We've arranged to meet Mark and Mandy at the Time Out Market down by the waterfront. Issy thought that she'd brought a map with her but it doesn't seem to be in her backpack, and the map that I've got doesn't cover this part of the city. Fortunately we stumble across our destination by accident. It seems to be a real "go to" eating venue - tables and chairs surrounded by stalls selling every form of food known to man. It's very busy and most of the tables and chairs seem to be occupied. We find a tall table that the four of us can stand at, but chairs are a bit more problematic. Issy steals one from a bar, but I'm not sure she's seen the sign on the back of it suggesting that it's probably not supposed to leave its bar-side home. She suggests that I pilfer some more, but the bar looks like it's being protected by some large and unfriendly looking security guards that I'm not too sure I want to get on the wrong side of. The food's however excellent.

We leave Mark and Mandy to go wandering while we head back for a siesta. It looks like they're setting up for the finish of a marathon in the Praca do Comercio, and we think that this might have had something to do with the festivities that were going on here while we were eating last night. I'm not too sure that wearing heavy black clothes and smearing your face with black would help too much if you were running a marathon, but maybe they do things a bit differently here. Anyway, I'd rather that the people we saw last night were getting ready for a marathon than preparing to blow-up unwanted tourists.

We book a table for the four of us at the same Fado restaurant that Issy and I ate at two nights ago, right next to our apartment. We're enjoying our drinks, and soon get into enthusiastic story telling mode. It seems that we're being perhaps just a bit too enthusiastic and noisy for our waiter's liking; he doesn't look at all happy and tells us in no uncertain terms that we need to be quiet while the music's playing. We're sitting outside and the music's inside, but it seems that Fado is to be experienced in silence and we're clearly enjoying ourselves way too much. We buy a bottle of port and adjourn to our apartment terrace to continue the festivities.

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