Portugal Day Two: Lisbon Street Art and Sunset Sail

The main events for our first full day in Lisbon were a street art tour and a sunset sail. We got a fairly early start and ate breakfast at a place called the Paleio Café. Cole and I had peanut butter and banana on toast – a combination that would come up a couple of times on our trip and will probably make its way into the home breakfast rotation.  The café had an 80s vibe and, like a lot of the breakfast places we would visit, had a menu that was a little fancier than I think breakfast needs to be. I think a Waffle House could make a mint in Portugal.

From the cafe, it was a short walk to the meet up spot at Martim Moniz Square for the street art tour. While we were waiting for the others to arrive, there were a lot of flies at the square. Cole remarked, “this must be what it’s like to be dead!”

Our guide was Vera, a street artist from Belgium and her dog (whose name I forget). She had a particular interest in feminist themes in and about the art. The tour would take us through the Alfama and Mouraria neighborhoods of Lisbon.

The art raised interesting questions (as art does.) We saw some really captivating, unsanctioned art painted on walls that someone else owns. The good stuff is provocative and makes that part of Lisbon interesting. But it’s easily painted over by bad, lazy, and/or damaging graffiti. Who has the right to paint where? Who should decide? Vera said it was often times just municipal workers, hired to repaint walls that have been spray painted. They’ll simply fail to paint over the items they happen to like.

Leaving the decision up to property owners is another solution. Certainly, that comports with my sense of property rights. But do we really want art left in the hands of those who can pass a certain financial threshold? (Or artists who won’t offend the sensibilities of those who can?)

The tour was great, but it ended up being about 3.5 hours and, like a book in need of an editor, probably would have been even better if it were more like 2 hours.

Immediately after the tour, we caught an Uber to the LX Factory in the Alcantara district.  It was an old textile complex that has been reworked into a commercial area with shops and restaurants. Mostly, we probably could have skipped this trip – given how much else we were doing that day – but the lunch was pretty good. We ate at a restaurant called “Beer’s.”  Given the name, what’s a guy to do but have a nice big mug of Sagres? On top of that, I had my first (but not last) bifana of the trip. It’s a staple in Portugal with a number of variations, but basically it’s a pork sandwich. Tasty and not complicated. I get tired of restaurants with overly complicated hamburgers and whatnot, so that was perfect for me.

In the LX Factory complex there was a good sized book store where we spent some time, but the titles were all in Portuguese, so those didn’t have a ton of appeal for us. It had a really great record section, focused on jazz. (So of course, I found myself mostly flipping through the Blues section!) That section had a strict “no pictures” rule for some reason.

Beyond the record store and the restaurant, the other stores didn’t really have a lot that jumped out to us; so, we decided to catch another Uber back home. (Logistically, it would have made some sense to stay in the area because our next activity was not too far away, but we were pretty gassed.) The Ubers are readily available and cheap. Given the company’s history, I’d guess they are hoping to erode the city’s transportation infrastructure and then jack up prices. But, right now getting around town was a breeze.

After resting up a bit, we headed back out to the River Tagus for a sunset river cruise. The Uber driver was following directions that got him almost to the port, but not quite and found himself at a dead end. He dropped us off and we were able to walk the rest of the way. The meet up was next to the “paddle club” which – I thought was going to have something to do with boats. But it was a bunch of pickleball courts. While killing time, Cole and I had a beer. Carlsberg was the only thing on tap. It’s not Portuguese, but not the worst fate in the world.

Our sailboat was “the Leonard Cohen” which tickled me quite a bit, particularly given the “Everybody Knows” lyric that “everybody knows the boat is leaking; everybody knows the captain lied.” Our hosts were Pedro & Pedro. We sat in the bow of the ship and felt like we got the better Pedro. Another part of the group was astern and we didn’t have much interaction with them. There was a lady from Utah who sat up front with us. She was pleasant but mostly didn’t seem inclined to interact much, so we let her be.

The weather was fantastic. In fact, the weather was terrific for almost the entire trip – generally somewhere between 65 – 80 and sunny. We sailed from port, downstream toward the ocean – seeing, among other things, the Monument of the Discoveries, the 25 de Abril Bridge (formerly the Salazar bridge, but nobody much cares for the dictator after they gave him the boot), the Cristo-Rei monument, and Belem tower. Then the boat turned around and went upstream back past where we started and as far as the Praca do Comercio (giant plaza built after the 1755 earthquake.) Then we turned again and found a nice spot in the middle of the river to wait for the sunset.

During all of this, there was fun music (we joked about it being “music white people like” and I correctly predicted that “Sweet Caroline” would be coming on eventually.) Pedro kept us supplied with vinho verde and sketchy Portuguese nautical facts. (He told us that the word for “tea” came from a Portuguese stamp “T.E.A.” placed on crates during the age of discovery; and that “port” and “starboard” came from the fact that, when heading south along side Africa during the age of discovery, sailors would have port to their left and stars to their right.) Also, and this was unexpectedly the coup de gras, we were given Bugles to snack on. Left to my own devices, I never would have asked for them, but they were exactly the right thing paired with sailing and vinho verde.

We capped off the night with dinner at a sushi restaurant called Izanagi just up the boardwalk from the dock. I can’t say that the food was memorable, but it wasn’t bad, and the river view was excellent. All-in-all, a successful day in Lisbon.