We started Tuesday, after leaving the hotel around 10, with a morning walk through the Baixa neighborhood. Baixa is the lower town, Lisbon’s historic downtown.
We strolled to the Praça do Comércio, which is riverfront. Ships used to dock and sell their goods from the Square. Now, the government ministries ring the Square. Cruise ships, riverboats, city buses and tram tours, all begin in this neighborhood along the Square. It even has its own Arch of Triumph, which we walked through, to enter the neighborhood streets of Baixa.
We explored The streets which were aligned with post earthquake buildings. All with different colors, the buildings gave a Parisian feel to the neighborhood.
We continued walking through Baixa, stopping at the Church of Sao Domingos. The church, which was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1755, houses a chapel to Our Lady of Fatima, which was ringed with candles.
After leaving the church, we stopped by a hole in the wall, where we tasted ginjinha, which is a liqueur made from the ginja berry. For 1.50 euros, we each had a shot glass filled with the liqueur and two sour cherries, from the oldest ginjinha joint in Lisbon!!
We had a late afternoon food tour with Ruthy from Treasures of Lisboa in the Alfama neighborhood. There were 14 other hungry patrons on the tour with us, roaming the very hilly section of Lisbon.
In the first restaurant, we sampled olive oil and bread, and cod croquettes with Sagres beer, followed by sardines on crostini. I was surprised at the size of the sardines, which were very tasty!! No bones, as the sardines are steamed and canned, and the bones become soft.
The next restaurant had pork sandwiches, salad and green wine, which is young wine from the northern region of Portugal, and ferments in the bottle adding fizz. Green wine is native and unique to Portugal. We also tried a tart with cod and onion jam, which I did not like as much.
The third restaurant was an old cozy neighborhood restaurant that specializes in sausage. We had cheese and sausage, as well as red wine and another shot of ginjinha, which we already discovered earlier in the day!!
Sausage on the flame grill with the owner
We followed up with wonderful pastry tarts called pastel feijao, which tasted like cream brûlée pastries.
Last, we had the famous Lisbon custard tarts, pastries de Nata, which are filled with sweet egg cream and covered in flaky pastry!
Lisbon’s famous Pasteis de Nata
After a full afternoon of eating. We could only have a few nibbles at a wine bar at the end of our hotel’s street!!
