Jacques and Rollande: October 26 - Day 2 in Lisbon

After a good night's sleep, we began our day by going to breakfast which is included in our package. They had an amazing spread with a wide variety of options to choose from, meats, eggs, pancakes, potatoes, breads, fruits, juices and sweets.

We met our guide for the week at 9 and were assigned a bus. There are 2 but they are only about half full so lots of room.

We started by driving to Alfama where we had a walking tour. We covered some of the places we had gone to yesterday but today we had explanations to what we were seeing. Our guide gave us recommendations of what to do during our free time. We visited the squares with the couple from Vancouver, George and Geri, did a bit of browsing in the stores and then stopped for lunch. Lunch was very good. I had the squid and Jacques had sardines. After the meal, the bill was quite a bit higher than what we had been told it would cost. Geri argued a bit but we decided to let it be. It was obviously a tourist trap and we let it be as a lesson learned. We should have realized when they served beer to Geri and George that they hadn't ordered. There was no official receipt just an addition on the paper tablecloth.

In the afternoon we visited the tower of Belém and park but as it was raining quite hard we made it a short visit.

Our next stop was the monument to the discoveries marking the 500th anniversary of Henry the navigator. The sun was out again so we were better able to admire the monument.

We finished the tour by visiting the cathedral and the monastery of Jerònimos (Hieronymos) that holds the tomb of Vasco de Gama and Camões.

Before heading back to the hotel our guide had a box of pastel de Belém for us to sample. Wow, so much better than the ones we buy at Costco (if they are not from this particular store they are called pastel de nata because they hold the original recipe passed on from the monks who made them before they were forced from the monastery.

After returning to our hotel we finished the day by stopping at the grocery store for a bottle of wine, bread and prosciutto to go with the cheese that Jacques had bought at one of the booths in the square while I bought a couple of trivets for our table at home.