PORTUGAL PARIS DAY 2 – MISS CAN, MONASTERY AND MATILDA

 

We set out to explore Lisbon and grab a quick cup of Portuguese coffee for our walk.  Today we’re heading for Alfama, the oldest neighborhood in the city.  Apparently they started at the top and built their way down over the centuries, so there will be hills today.

Our first stop is the Church of Santo Antonio de Lisbon, or Saint Ant’nee as we call him back in Jersey.  Even though he’s most associated with Padua, Italy, this namesake cathedral commemorates the saint’s birth here in Lisbon.  The exterior flowered wall and ornate interior stands in stark contrast to the more stern Lisbon Cathedral just a hundred meters away.  We do marvel at the sheer density of Catholic churches in this city, sometimes two on a single block.  It makes us wonder if they vied for your business back in the day, and imagine them running a two-for-one salvation special at the end of a slow quarter.

There are plenty a great viewpoints as we climb higher, including 4 separate insta-ready spots within sight of the Saint Vincent statue.  Suckers for a good lookout, we stop at all of them.

We pass Castle Saint George, the most popular attraction in one of the most visited cities in the world.  It’s beautiful on the outside, but call an audible and choose to explore the quiet, tiny streets of this lovely neighborhood instead of fighting the castle crowds.  For all the throngs of tourists, the charming houses and compact apartments of the neighborhood remain largely inhabited by locals.   

Our walk takes us right past Miss Can, and my reaction is audible for two reasons.  First, Mandy showed me this place during her travel planning and it looked adorable.  Second, we skipped breakfast and I’m starving.  Even though there is an abundance of fresh seafood in Lisbon, canned (or “tinned”) fish has been an important staple since the 1850s.  Not to be confused with dreck that was found in the supermarket aisle in 1950s, 60s and 70s America, the shelf stable fish here is a fine cuisine in and of itself.  And that’s what Miss Can is all about.  The shelves of this diminutive shop are lined with dozens and dozens of varieties, each wrapped in colorful paper with artistic designs.  You can grab and go, but we choose one of the few little tables to dine-in instead.  We choose four varieties, and the clerk/waiter helps us add fresh bread and soft, local sheep cheese.  We’re expecting to eat from the tins, but what’s delivered is four beautifully plated dishes.  First taste is of the tuna with pickles in spicy oil.  Mellow, mild with a touch of heat.  Next is mackerel in tomato, firm and flavorful, a bit richer than the tuna.  Third is sardines in straight EVOO, a favorite of Mandy’s since childhood at her grandmother’s house in Feltonville.  The last is my stretch, octopus in olive oil.  I love octopus, Mandy, not so much, but even she really liked it and we both agreed it was the best for dipping bread.  All four are surprisingly not “fishy” and very light on the salt.  Everything pairs very well with both Mandy’s house rose and my cold Super Bock.

Lisbon is known for its ornate tile work which adorns the interior or exterior of virtually every building in some way, shape or form.  Along our walk, we see several locations where traditional tile artists ply their craft, making everything from single souvenir tiles to large, elaborate tile murals.  Of course, the natural extension of the tile craft is that there is an vibrant ceramic arts culture here as well and we have fun wandering the shops and meeting some of the artists.

Up, up, up to the highest point in the city.  The nuns musta picked first cause the views from the convent are spectacular.  They even though to put in a rooftop bar, but we are still a bit buzzy from lunch, so we snap a few pic and roll on to check out the church and nearby park.  Walking on, the street art, catches our eye, but we’re a bit suspect about the underlying messages.

We come across the towering Monastery of Sao Vincente de Fora and decide to invest a few euros in the tour.  It’s enormous and makes us wonder what you needed all the space for if you just sat around all day chanting and making booze.  The tilework is some of the most impressive we’ve seen and the architecture ornate yet clean. 

It’s a long walk back down to our hotel at sea level, and we immediately head up the other side to Bairro Alto.  If Baixa is Touristo Centro and Alfama is for the height of religion, Bairro Alto is the perpetually gentrifying, funky, bohemian neighborhood.  Forged by the traditions of the dissenting free press in the late 1800s, the streets still verberate with the political and musical undertones of SoHo or Paris.  We stop to see the Carmo Church, built in the late 14^th century then mostly destroyed in the Great Earthquake of 1755.  We find that the remaining bones, soaring columns and arches, with no roof left to support, suggest the existence of God more powerfully than any intact religious structure we have ever been in.  If this was a painting, you’d call the roof “negative space”, but the blue blue sky pouring in through the few standing trusses and buttresses is cause for belief in, and joyous celebration of, a higher power.  Oh yea, and there’s a cat.

It's afternoon in Europe, so we do the afternoon in Europe thing.  Find a table outside of a little café on a narrow street and order libations.  Just one though.  We’ll need a nap before dinner.

And what a dinner we have planned.  Way off the beaten tourist path to Adega da Tia Matilde – Aunt Matilda’s Wine Cellar – where we will hear no English spoke for the rest of the night.  Not by the staff, the patrons or even our Uber driver.  This is strictly for the home team.  Thank god for Google translate, because between Mandy and I we know a total of five Portuguese words.  The cod cake is essentially a fish fritter, crispy outside, flavorful in and I still can’t believe you can make anything taste this good from that white, powder covered hunk of fish jerky we say in the market.  We see what in Spain we would call a Jamon Iberico and ask them what they call it here, the waitress proudly says “prosciutto”, so now we have a dish of delish, thinly sliced cured ham and our sixth Portuguese word.  The whole grilled sea bass is paired with a white “Quartz” wine from the Duoro Valley, the minerality bouncing nicely off the well prepared fish.  We just want to be here a bit longer, so some pantomime ensues that results in us receiving a few digestiefs.  Mandy is presented with a pour of Beirao, the local herbal liquor equivalent of amaro (but sweeter) and the owner mixes me an almond liquor with a giant squish of lemon which ends up being a surprisingly satisfying way to end our night.

PORTUGAL PARIS DAY 1 – BAIXA & BIFANA

We travel for lots of different reasons.  Adventure, relaxation, work, family.  Although we didn’t know why when we planned this trip a year ago, we know now.  Recovery.

LaCompanige is a boutique French airline with just a few routes, one of them being Newark to Paris.  Their hook is that they take Airbus A321 NEOs and outfit them with just 78 full laydown business class seats.  This, and the fantastic discounts they were offering both fit nicely into our current long haul flight strategy:  find the cheapest business class flight into the general region, then take the cheap-o shuttles to our final destination.  It allows us to sleep as comfortably as possible on overnight flights and add another destination to each trip.  Hence our Portugal trip became our Portugal Paris trip.

The flight is a very civilized affair from the get-go.  Separate zippy lane through EWR Terminal B security.   Lounge & Co. – that’s the super creative name for their hospitality suite – during the wait for a nosh and a few drinks.  Boarding takes all of 10 minutes.  As we settle into our pods, we’re welcomed with nice flutes of champaign served by an attractive staff with French accents.  It’s the 60s, and we’re getting to fly Pan-Am.  Push away right at 7pm and it’s the fastest gate-to-sky we’ve ever experienced. 

Bong.  Seat belt light goes off, dinner is served.   Salmon for Mandy, duck for me, both very nice and paired with some excellent vintage wine.  Lie back, sync up a movie on our screens and doze through the ether into another world.

We land at Paris Orly, which is nice for not having to deal with the giant habitrails and decaying infrastructure that is Charles De Gaul airport.  Another cut-the-line lane for us through security, then a bit of hang time for our connecting flight.  TAP Air Portugal is a basic as it gets,  but it’s clean and efficient.  Two hour hop, no wait at the Thrifty desk and we’re down the road in a black Renault Captur crossover.

In no time flat we’re in Baixa, in the bustling hub of one of the world’s busiest travel destinations.  It’s Wednesday noon and the happy energy is palpable as we get our first time in Lisbon.

We’re starving so we aim for Lisbon’s king of street food.  Philly has cheesesteaks (of course the best version of food-define-city-define-food on the planet.)  Rajkovich has hot dogs.  Venice does fried seafood in a paper cone.  Here it’s the bifana, tender, thin sliced pork marinated in white wine, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, paprika and chili powder, then lightly fried in lard then slow cooked with the leftover marinade in giant pans.  Stick that into a perfect Portuguese roll, crusty out, fluffy in, add a little mustard or chili oil and a cold beer chaser.  And no better place to sample this delicacy the Bifanas of Afonso, 30 minute line be damned.  You don’t have to know what a good bifana tastes like to know that this is a great one.  It would be like having your first car be a Porsche 911.  You don’t have any other reference, but you just know that it’s not going to get better than this.

We check into the Eurostars Lisboa Baixa Hotel, a swank city joint just a few blocks from the river, and crash for an hour or so.  Then we’re back out on tonight’s adventure, a walking food tour.  Our affable host Daniel starts with a little history of the country and weaves the evolution of the cuisine through the story of Portugal’s politics, conquests, defeats and explorations.  Some highlights from the tour:

-  There is such a thing as “green wine”.  You can get it in the most basic establishments.  It’s a distinctly herbal white wine from the rainy, or green, region of northeast Portugal.  It’s not famous for a reason.

-  All bifanas are not created equal.  Having now tried 2 examples, we can clearly classify ourselves as The Authority in the Bifanious arts.  Isn’t that how the interweb works?

-  Salt cod is pretty  much the national dish of Portugal, even though there is not a swimming cod within thousands of nautical miles from here.

-  Apparently, if you mess with a completely unappetizing raw ingredient for enough centuries, you can finally figure out a few pretty good recipes.

-  If you smash a thousand years of world exploration into a single piece of dough, fold it like a newspaper hat and deep fry it, you get a samosa.

-  They have a thing for ceramic penises in this country, especially if they are very big and filled with ginjinha, that syrupy Portuguese liquor that tastes like the inside of those individually wrapped chocolate coved cherries they used to sell near the cash register at the supermarket.

-  Canadian honeymooners, especially those named Barbara and Hamilton, are a lot of fun to hang out with.

-  French chefs can make anything taste good, even blood sausage.

It’s been an actual 40 hour day.  Sleep comes easily.