A Portuguesa. When the mañana mentality meets German punctuality

Being the ever smart travellers we had booked the 8:30am flight to be home early (5pm), but don’t really need to start your way to the airport in the middle of the night. We had barely dragged our suitcases, which did weigh significantly more than a week ago, down the slippery stairs in Alfama (no taxi has access to our street, so it’s up to Mohammed to go to the mountain) when TAP announced that the smart one is not the one rushing and our flight will depart at 9am. In airport it turned smoothly into 9:25am and already in the plane, into 10:15am. Anyway it was clear that we will not make it on our Tallinn flight.

Since we unexpectedly had more time than planned to spend in Lisbon airport, we decided to have breakfast. The choice being bread and bread, I chose some bread. With avocado and poached egg. As menu with coffee in combo. So I asked for the avocado toast menu. To also get the coffee. The lovely lady behind the counter, being in the suitable mood for this early hour, only punched in the price for the toast. I pointed out that I ordered the menu. Based on her reply in Portuguese, I understood that I should have asked for it then. Anyway, she called a dude for help from back, who cancelled the order all the while the lady furiously commented and took frowning glances at the tourist, who is not even able to ask for coffee. I finally got my toast, which just as promised had some mashed avocado spread on and topped with dried egg instead of poached egg. A bit of salt only improved the situation a little.

On the Frankfurt - Lisbon flight Lufthansa offered full menu (lasagna, dessert, caprese, chocolate), so our expectations after two hour delay were high. Once we got through the turbulences, turned out that lunch will be only served in business class, the rabble was given a stale pastel de nata and drinks.

In Frankfurt, I assumed that the Germans will quickly take care of the rebooking and in no time we will be sitting on the next flight to Tallinn. The Germans sent us where the sun doesn’t shine. Which means to the TAP counter. They should take care of their mess themselves. To get to TAP counter we had to leave the security area, find their counter and in no time, also known as two hours we had our new tickets. We waited another 20 minutes for our meal vouchers, because with the German punctuality they couldn’t give those out without stamps. Through the security, where they unpacked my bag (in Lisbon nobody cared, what I was carrying) and went to the first eatery to have some food. So good!

A Portuguesa. Tourist.

Since one photo tells more than 1000 words, so to save the reader from a 14.000-word description of how we climbed up the vertical streets in Bairro Alto or walked back to El Corte Ingles or went for the ice cream in the evening, here is a 14-picture photo overview the Saturday.

A Portuguesa. Communists.

Rest of the week was spent mainly in the office and on the WebSummit. The time that wasn’t spent in those two places we were trying to locate restaurants, where the food is not drowning in oil (fairly failed attempt!), walked up the stairs and serpentines in Alfama to get fresh fruit ice creams (totally succeeded attempt) and went for runs.

One night we realized that the sun is setting in 20 minutes and the prime spot to watch it is just few steps from us. We put the sneakers on, grabbed the cameras and ran to the river. Made it there just in time to see half the sun under the bridge.

Few days later we decided to make a better planned attempt and googled the best sunsetwatchplatforms. After all we did stay right in Alfama, which is located on the hill and should offer us all the breathtaking sunset views. We walked to the most promising platform just to find out that you can watch anything but the setting sun there.

The rule is here that you enter the buses through front door. Near the front there are also the validators, where you need to swipe your ticket. One morning we happened to be in the bus stop in the rush hour and once the bus arrived, us trying to enter through front door would have looked like the best example of Indian transportation, where the people are in the bus, on the bus and hanging from sides and back. The situation by all other doors looked much spacier and we entered through center door. Probably having never seen such a chutzpah an elderly man went off to tell us for the next five minutes in Portuguese, what he thinks of us. After he left, one helpful guy summarized the tirade in English that we are damn communists, who just want to take advantage of the public transportation in Lisbon and ride for free.

A Portuguesa. Sintra

Pretty unexpectedly we managed to see the bigger part of city centre yesterday, so we decided to get out of town and visit Sintra today. We again took the taxi and drove all the way up to the colorful castle. Despite having sun blazing below in Lisbon, the weather up the hill was cloudy and slightly rainy. Even if we would have wanted to pay 20 something euros for the entrance, it didn’t seem reasonable in this weather, so we started our way down to enjoy the views on the way. The views were amazing. Especially the ones, where, standing in the rain yourself, you could admire the sunny Lisbon below. We reached the village and chose a restaurant, which had gazpacho on the menu. Turned out that we had managed to choose the finest dining place of the settlement with white table cloths and suited waiters.

We both opted for the soup, but despite the fact that gazpacho was even written on the white paper of specials, they are not offering it in November anymore. Not the season. Oh, well. Since we had already sat down and assumed that the possibility to have coffee is not depending of the season, we just asked for cappuccinos. Yeah, well - they are running a restaurant there and they absolutely expect their customers to have a meal there, not just sip on a cup of coffee. So we went to a little cafe just around the corner, where we spent a nice hour with coffee and some cakes.

We walked up to the Quita de Regaleira, which is a palace with huge garden and spent at least an hour there. After that it definitely was time for late lunch and we returned to the village. At 3pm on a Sunday afternoon all that Sintra had to offer were pastries, cakes and roasted chestnuts. Because all the restaurants had finished serving lunch and closed their kitchens until dinnertime.

We took taxi back to Lisbon, did some slippershopping, got some coffee in Starbucks and returned to the apartment. Since the Portuguese cuisine was less than impressive, Bolt delivered us some poke bowls.

A Portuguesa. Sightseers

Since our accommodation was conveniently on the lower side of Alfama, just by the river, I started my morning with running along the river ad back. Around 9am we made our way out to have some breakfast. Turned out that the Portuguese idea of balanced breakfast was some sweet pastry or cake and cup of coffee. It wasn’t ours, so we kept walking and finally found a place, where we could order some eggs. And bread. We took some combos and my plate was covered with oily eggs, four little wiener sausages, a loaf of bread and half of mango.

After the breakfast the plan was to visit the city center. Or revisit in my case. We walked around until the weather didn’t cooperate anymore and took a taxi back to the apartment. Got dressed a bit more appropriately, waited until the rain was over and went out again. By the dinnertime we had seen Bairro Alto, Alfama and overlooked the city from the elevator platform.

We also went to the Lidl nearby and got some food that would probably get us through the week, paper towels and few other items.

A Portuguesa. Welcome!

After arrival in Lisbon we called Bolt. As pick up place we could choose T1 Departures or T2. All whilst standing in T1 Arrivals, because, well, we arrived, right? We hoped that Bolt driver is a reasonable person and would understand, where to come. Especially since we did send him a text. Seems that he wasn’t, because after driving around for 10 minutes he just left. We called another one. He was at least ready to talk to us over the phone. In Portuguese. Luckily there was a policeman standing and we just pushed Polina’s phone in his hand and asked him to talk to the Bolt driver and figure the location out. Turned out, we had to go back in, then to the second floor, from there out again and already we are in the departures parking lot, which apparently is the most obvious place to pick up arriving travellers.

We had booked an apartment in Alfama. True to the non-efficiency of Southern Europe the apartment didn’t have lockbox nor self-check-in and we had to go and get the key from the Welcome center 25 minutes away. Yes, key, not keys, although we were two people. The girl in the reception explained that although two people, we should have ordered the second key prior. But we had the opportunity to back there next day no pay 30 euros deposit in cash (because credit cards are for pussies!) and get the second key. To get the cash deposit back later, we would need to return the key to the Welcome Center before leaving Lisbon. So we took our one key and cab and drove to the apartment.

Additional conveniences offered by the landlord were a “Welcome package”, toilet paper for the first night, breathtaking views of abandoned buildings in our court yard and lots of fines that will be implemented, should we for example lose the keys. With great excitement we opened the welcome package at least and found a dish washing sponge, a rug, dish washing soap and two tablespoons of olive oil (in a bottle as big as perfume testers) - we felt so welcome!

We divided the bedrooms and went out to stretch our legs and have some dinner. Barely few hundred meters from our flat we found the A Baiuca, that genuine fado place, where people, also me and Scott few years ago, leave with tears in eyes and which food, accompanied by that horrible egg porridge from kinder garden still pops up in my nightmares. The streets were aligned with “home made Portuguese food” restaurants, all using the same, not true photos of the food. We finally stepped into one and ordered some Portuguese fried octopus with potatoes. What landed in front of me was a plate full of oil, few octopus legs swimming in it and four watery potatoes.