Day: February 5, 2017

The one thing that made this trip a bit less exciting was the fact that we would miss my friend Melanie’s Super Bowl party.  I don’t really care about the game but I love the filet mignon sliders Melanie serves during half time.  As luck would have it Melanie decided to cancel her party this year.  I think the news that Patrice and I could not attend must have led to her canceling the party.

The city of Lisbon is very excited about the upcoming game.  We asked the bellman where we could watch the game and he said, “This is what?”.  We finally explained that this was an American football game to which he said, “Oh yes, American football.  Yes, yes, no, no, I don’t know if you can watch.”   I just heard a report on BBC that 170 million Americans will be watching the game and that it is a very patriotic event.  The reporter explained that “Americans across the country will be sitting on their couches and holding their little flags while watching the game”.    That is always the dilemma at Melanie’s party, where to put my American flag while trying to gobble down those sliders.

Football aside we decided to travel to Belém today.  This is an area in Lisbon famous for the home of the Portuguese President.  That would be Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa who lives in the Pink House as oppose to our White House (see below).

In addition we went to the MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology) which was  a very forgettable experience except for an exhibit that showed your image based on your body temperature (see below).

We also saw the Torre Belém and the Monastery (see below).

But most importantly we saw the main thing that drew us to this part of the city, the Pastéis de Belém.  This restaurant (first opened in 1837) supposedly sells the best custard tarts in the city.  The custard tart is essentially the national dessert of Portugal and Pastéis de Belém is where you can get the best of the best.  I wanted to make sure that we gave it an adequate test so we ordered 5 of them (see below) and we were unanimous in our approval (thanks Lindsay for the recommendation).

There was one other very interesting sight in the town (and I don’t mean the McDonalds). There was a bridge that looked like a small version of the Golden Gate and nearby what looked like a miniature version of Christ the Redeemer (see below).

 

Tomorrow we fly back to Madrid.  I don’t think we gave Portugal enough time and a return trip will definitely be in our future plans.  Now we need to find the Super Bowl.

Today we ventured out of town to a nearby town called Sintra.  This is the home of a gorgeous castle built in the 16th century that was destroyed by a massive earthquake in 1755 (apparently they haven’t had any earthquakes since) and then rebuilt in the early 19th century. Based on today’s journey I am led to believe that any time I visit a landmark in a Portuguese speaking country it is fogged in.  You might recall we got to see Christ the Redeemer in Rio from the mid chest down (see below).

Today we essentially saw the Pena Palace from the chest down (also see below).  We did get to view the inside and received a course in Portuguese History 101 from the one of the security guards.  Unfortunately the outside beauty (see below) was not available to us today.

Also notice the arch in the picture above.  This demonstrates the Moorish influence upon the architecture.  It is interesting to me (most likely not to anyone else) that the Moors were driven out of the Iberian peninsula at the end of the 15th century but their influence on the culture of this area continued long after they left the region.

We are off to dinner and a concert now.  Moor, oops More about that later.