Thanks thursdaysd...I'll map it out on my restaurant "cheat sheet"
We're not big foodies when we travel, but we do like to get the local feel.

One image (and sound) is worth one thousand words

http://www.videos.es/reproductor/can...s-(WCWc3V0YK_s

Grupo Coral Mineiros de Aljustrel

Gorgeous photos and report Nikki!

Thursday morning we have breakfast at the hotel, which consists of a buffet of cold cuts and rolls, juice, and cereal. Then we head out. I spend some time taking photos in Rossio Square while Alan walks down to the waterfront. I have learned that Rossio is pronounced roussiou. Why? Because unstressed syllables spelled with an “o” are pronounced “ou” as in soup. But the first syllable is stressed, I objected when Lobo explained this. Oh, but it's the next to last syllable, was the explanation. Or maybe I got that wrong, and it is not stressed after all. I have learned that an “r” in the beginning of a word is pronounced as if it were French, but an “r” in the middle of a word is pronounced as if it were Italian. And an “s” at the end of a word is pronounced “sh”, as is an “s” before a “c” or a “t”. I'm told that this is easy, that it is completely phonetic. That's nice, but by the time I have figured out how to pronounce a street name, the taxi driver has headed in the opposite direction.

I notice posters on the Teatro Nacional for the show “August, Osage County”. I saw this on Broadway last year- great show.

When Alan returns, we walk down Rua Aurea, the historical goldsmiths' street. I buy a gold plated chain priced by the centimeter to replace one that I recently broke. We stop at a shop selling pottery and other handicrafts, where I buy yet another beautiful blue plate and some linens. We take a break on a bench next to Rua dos Sapateiros, the traditional shoemakers' street, but we do not shop for shoes. We walk as far as the Praca do Comercio, which is closed off for construction. When we were last in Lisbon two years ago, there was construction along the waterfront, and now it has moved in to the big plaza. I imagine the intent is to open up the city to the waterfront, and I am curious to see what it will look like when finished, but for now the area is unappealing, and we leave.

We return to our pedestrian street at lunch time. Hawkers in front of all the restaurants annoy me, but we are hot and tired so we sit down at one of the places. I am usually reluctant to eat in any restaurant with a menu in five languages and pictures, but all the places on this street are like that. We are pleasantly surprised. The waiter brings out starters of olives, and good bread with fresh cheese and cured cheese, which I like a lot. We continue with a big plate of snails with toothpicks to get them out of their shells. Alan says he could spend a whole afternoon there with the beer and snails. He has a stew with octopus and rice. I get pork and clams with fried potatoes and pickled carrot and cauliflower bits.

We both enjoy the meal and the ambience. Another preconception bites the dust.

Above and between the restaurants are shops and offices in the ancient buildings. An optician's office on the second story of a building across the way displays a sign saying that it has been there 54 years. We figure the guy taking a break hanging out the window is the original proprietor.

Next to our restaurant is a shop selling all kinds of hooks, hangers, and hinges. The inside of the store is lined with wooden drawers for all the hardware. We buy a brass door knocker as a souvenir.

Back at the hotel, it is time for a nap and some air conditioning. I want to rest up for our get-together with Lobo and his family, and Matt from England, another Fodor's poster and his family. We all have met together in Lisbon before, and on one memorable occasion two years ago, in New York. Tonight we are gathering at the Adega das Gravatas, a restaurant with the ties of its patrons hanging from the rafters as decoration. This restaurant is in Carnide, an outlying neighborhood of Lisbon with ancient narrow cobbled alleys and tiles by each doorway with pictures of saints.

The starters include octopus salad, crab balls, and cheese. Then there is acorda with shrimp, two kinds of grilled fish, secrets of the black pig (that's what Lobo calls it anyway), and a slab of steak on a hot rock. The steak comes to the table raw, and you start slicing off chunks of it when it is sufficiently cooked. I like all of it. For dessert, we have a large plate with samples of several types of very sweet pastry. The bill comes to about 20 euros per person, including the wine which is flowing freely. A great place.

great report, thanks....see you at the boston GTG....hope YK will come too

Friday morning we pick up our rental car for the drive to the Alentejo. The last time we did this, we rented the car at the airport, and there were horrendous lines. It took us an hour to get out of there. This time, I thought I would be clever, and I arranged to pick up the car at a rental office in central Lisbon. When we arrive, there are only three customers there. It still takes an hour to get out.

You can't win.

We drive to Terena, a hilltop village crowned by a castle, a crumbling church, and the former bishop's residence, which is now a bed & breakfast called Casa de Terena. http://62.140.221.80/english/index.html

We stayed here for two nights on our first visit and we wanted to return for a longer stay, so we are here for four nights. We are greeted by Hazel, who is managing the inn for the owners, who are away in South Africa. We are the only guests this evening, so we have our pick of the rooms. We choose one with a beautiful view over a reservoir and the surrounding countryside. I hear a rooster, then something mechanical that turns out to be a defective fan for the air conditioner across the way in the telephone company's equipment, then sheep bells, then the sheep themselves. There is a refreshing breeze here on the hilltop. Time for a nap.

In the late afternoon, Hazel puts out tapas and joins us for drinks and conversation in the welcoming lounge. She has made bacalhau, the salt cod that can reputedly be prepared 365 ways, one for each day of the year. Today it is served in thin strips with garlic and oil, together with a dish of pickled red peppers. The two dishes go well together.

We stay close by for dinner, going to the new restaurant built across the road from the village, with a great view of the hilltop town and castle. This is Herdade dos Barros. We converse with the young owner, who grew up in Terena, left to serve in the army, and then came back to open his business. Hearing we are American, he tells us he spent a month in Deland, Florida, training for his sky diving team.

We order açorda with bacalhau. This is served by putting bread in the bottom of the bowl, and then spooning soup with bacalhau over it. Then we try two different cuts of pork from the black pig, the secretos and the plumas, so we can compare and contrast. Both good, I decide.

Sounds wonderfully relaxing and delicious. Except for the rental car pick-up, of course.

Saturday morning we awaken to a breakfast table set with fresh squeezed orange juice, two round cheeses (fresh and dry) and two sliced cheeses, two types of ham, fresh bread with butter, three types of homemade preserves and local honey, a cooked peeled plum, banana cake and pound cake. I think there was yogurt and cereal on the counter, but I didn't get that far.

Hazel has told us about the Saturday morning market in Estremoz, so that is our first destination. We drive there through the countryside, passing marble quarries in Borba and then outside Estremoz. The large central square is filled with stands selling melons, olives, cheese, hams, sausage, live ducklings and roosters, pottery both functional and fancy, antique radios, bread, fresh and dried herbs, old sewing machines. People gather all around the market and talk in groups. I buy some of the plain pottery casseroles and olive dishes that we have seen used in all the restaurants. The smiling, toothless woman who sells them to me adds up the total on the cover of an issue of Vogue Magazine.

I buy yet another beautiful blue pottery plate at the next stand over.

We sit on a bench in front of a truck out of which people are selling bags of what appear to be chunks of white marble. We puzzle over this, but later I learn that this is a substance made from marble that has been processed to make whitewash. All the houses in this region are covered in gleaming whitewash that needs to be applied every year. We could never live here; the neighbors would complain.

We drive up to the castle at the top of this town. It is hot and blindingly sunny next to the dazzling white church and the thirteenth century castle and tower. There is a statue of Santa Isabel. As the story goes, the king did not approve of giving alms to the poor. The queen was carrying bread for the poor in her skirt, but when the king looked in her skirt, the bread had been converted miraculously to roses. It could just be me, but I am seeing more than one way for the queen to have accomplished this miracle.

There are spectacular views over the surrounding countryside, with its vineyards and olive groves. We can see the hilltop town of Evoramonte, which is our next destination.

We leave Estremoz through one of its ancient gates and pass quarries, then huge piles of marble, then a cemetery. Before and after.

Evoramonte is another hill town topped by a castle and a tower. We drive up to the entrance to the tiny walled village and park outside the walls. The road within is steep and narrow. We walk up to the sixteenth century tower, which we pay to enter. There are four turrets, and Alan climbs to the top.

Wonderful, Nikki! Your photos are super-the cheeses in the market in London truly cool. Portugal is on our list so this will be a report to which I return often.

By the way, did you see any John Singer Sargent works at the Tate Britain??? Should one go to Boston instead?

Nikki,
I'm so enjoying this wonderful report! And you've brought back fond memories for me of my stay at Casa de Terena, a place where I'd love to return.

Eager for the next installment!

Our next stop is Evora, a walled city whose historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is by far the most touristed place we have visited in the Alentejo. We drive to the Roman temple that stands on a hill in a central plaza, and Alan leaves me here while he drives around the city trying to find a parking place. He makes another pass after a while to tell me he is still looking.

There are people walking across the cobbled plaza in high heels and dresses. They seem to be arriving for a wedding in the eighteenth century convent next to the Roman temple. The convent was reconstructed after the earlier building was destroyed in an earthquake. Previous to that building, there had been a Moorish castle on the site.

After Alan finally finds a parking space out near the medieval aqueduct, he walks back to the Roman temple and we explore the area. There is a stone rectangular structure that I mistake for a bench. Closer inspection shows that it is a container for something that appears to be a petrified man. I have found nothing in my research that mentions this monument, and I would doubt my memory of it if I hadn't taken a photo.

We enter the cathedral and walk around its cloister before entering the church. I read that the Renaissance organ is thought to be the oldest in Europe. We walk to the main square, the Praça do Giraldo, named after Giraldo the Fearless, a Christian knight who is credited with expelling the Moors from Evora in the twelfth century.

The large plaza is filled with cafés, and we meet Lobo and Loba here for a drink. They have driven out from Lisbon to go to dinner at a restaurant in Evora about which they have heard good things, and after a while we set out in Lobo's car to find the restaurant. This turns out to be easier said than done. We drive several times around the circular streets within the city walls before Lobo acknowledges he has no idea where we are and starts asking passers-by for directions.

The first two or three people he asks do not speak Portuguese and Alan says they get the look that he would have if someone asked him directions: as if he had a pain in the stomach. Next we stop in front of a group of old men in front of a café, figuring they will know for sure. One of them comes and leans familiarly on the car and starts talking and gesturing. Alan says the guy has no idea. After five minutes we drive away, unenlightened. Oops, there is that one way street past the Roman temple again. It goes by the police station. On the second pass, we send Gertrude out to ask directions from a cop. He smiles and points and we drive away, no better informed than we were before.

We pass the medieval aqueduct, with shops and residences built into the arches, for a second time. This is comforting not because it is helping us locate the restaurant but because Alan parked the car near the aqueduct, so maybe we have a chance of finding it after dinner. Finally we stop in front of a guy with dreadlocks who is using a key to open a door. This guy actually knows what we are asking about, and he points back in the direction from which we have just come. We are on a one way street. Lobo pulls over to let the car behind us pass, then he backs down the narrow, winding, cobbled street between the houses and the people sitting out on their stoops and the parked cars. The guy with the dreadlocks is now following us (in front of our car) on a bicycle, and he points to the right street when we get there.

Success. Lobo turns right to park the car on our guide's instructions, and the rest of us turn left toward the restaurant. There is a car blocking the street in front of the restaurant, so we could not have gone that way in any event.

It is all worth it. The restaurant is wonderful. It is the Taberna Tipica Quarta-Feira. There are just a few tables, so reservations are essential. There is no menu. The chef prepares something different every day, and you are served everything he has cooked up.

On this occasion, we are presented with sliced ham, flat cod cakes, and a round cheese that has been baked and is melted in the middle for scooping onto bread. Then there are two preparations of pork: one is a plate of large, meaty chunks that have been cooked slowly until they are intensely flavorful and tender, and the other is sliced pork tenderloin stuffed with a rich sausage. There is creamed spinach, rice and potatoes. When this is finished, we are brought a plate of wonderful sweets. One is soft, flaky layers with honey and nuts. The other is some concoction of sugar, butter and eggs that originated in monasteries.

Lobo asks the waiter if the chef is his father. “My mother claims he is,” we are told. After dinner the chef comes out and wants to chat. He appears to be in deep conversation with Lobo and Loba, but Lobo tells us afterward that he couldn't understand much of what the chef was saying. Something about football and fishing, I think.

This has been a festive end to a long and fascinating day. Alan directs Lobo back to our car on the first try. We say our good-byes; who knows when we will meet again? And we drive back in the dark past the vineyards, the olive groves, the marble quarries, and the cork oaks to Terena.

Hi Nikki. Checking this from Obidos. Do not have WiFi at our house and finally found an internet station to use.
Love your report.

"<i>And we drive back in the dark past the vineyards, the olive groves, the marble quarries, and the cork oaks to Terena.</i>"

Sigh.

Beautifully done, Nikki.

Great great report Nikki! I enjoyed reading about Portobello Road and the toilet queue.............were the loos down a flight of stairs and sort of underground? I'm just curious because we did not have a very pleasant experience down there!! Especially the mens side. I won't scare you any further unless you ask me to!

Queensway is one of my favourite roads in London and I usually use the hairdressers just a little way down from the Queensway tube. At the bottom end of the street near the Bayswater tube is a Chinese called The Magic Wok - also very good.
You do know why they call the road Queensway don't you?

When you went to the Bastille Antique Market did they ask you to pay 8 euros to get in? When they did that to us we decided to laugh it off. It was drizzling as well so ...........we did the walk along the Promenade Plantee instead.

The apartment looks divine! The bed look like a kingsize?
All your photos brought back loads of memories especially Borough Market. Thanks for the picture of the Pie & Mash shop. I've always wanted to try one. What were those pies like for breakfast?? What do they put inside?
Questions questions.....sorry!

TDudette, I didn't see any John Singer Sargent at the Tate. We pretty much rushed through the museum just before closing and caught the two exhibits I mentioned in the report. Boston? Sure, why not? And let me know, I'll meet you at the MFA and you can explain the appeal of Sargent, an artist with whom I am mostly unfamiliar.

Tod, I didn't explore the public toilet at Portobello Road other than to note its existence and the line in front of it. Sounds like I should be grateful.

I don't know why they call the road Queensway. Is the explanation suitable for a family website?

Yes, I paid admission to the antique show at the Bastille, don't remember the amount.

The bed in the London apartment was billed as king size. It is not the same as king size in the US, however; it is closer to a US queen size.

As for the contents of the pie and mash, I don't really know, other than ground beef. What were they like for breakfast? Same general food groups as sausage and home fries, so why not?

Sunday morning we are greeted by Hazel, who tells us there is a problem with the water, and she has been complaining to officials about it. Last night she went to the gas station at the foot of the hill and found all the men from the village there with the same complaint. We have noticed nothing amiss, however, and Hazel is relieved.

We discuss where to go for dinner. Hazel suggests a small tavern in Hortinhas, a place where there is great cooking and a very local clientele, mostly farmers from the immediate area. We say that sounds perfect. She says she will check what is being prepared this evening and tell them we are coming. One of the important benefits of staying in a place where English is spoken is that we get the opportunity to learn about places to go, but also that someone can call restaurants for us and tell them what we want. This place has no menu and nobody there speaks English. The chances we would walk in on our own are very small. Hazel wants to make sure we realize this is a very simple place. She goes there all the time herself, but she seldom sees anyone else who doesn’t live in the immediate neighborhood. It is sounding better and better to us. We end up deciding we will all go together.

There are swallows swooping around the street in front of the inn, coming and going through a hole in the roof of the unoccupied house next door. Alan is standing in the road talking. We hear a car coming. Alan waits till it appears and shows which way it is headed. He is like the dogs lying across the road and waiting for each car that approaches to see whether it is absolutely necessary to move out of the way. There is that little traffic here. The neighbors spend their days outside their doorways, talking to each other. They stare at us. Staring does not seem to be the same cultural taboo it is where we live.

After yesterday's sightseeing on the beaten track, we decide to spend time more off the track today. We start by driving to the reservoir we can see from our window. It is very, very hot. There are men standing under umbrellas fishing. We also see a great blue heron fishing. I think of my friend back at home who is plagued by a great blue heron that steals the very expensive fish from her water garden. This Portuguese bird gets to fish in peace, away from the area with the fishermen so as to reduce the competition.

We drive on a dirt road through the olive groves. The road becomes more like a track, and we start to worry about scratching the car, but we circle around to the paved road again with no problem.

We drive around the area looking for medieval sepulchres and prehistoric stone monuments called antas, but we are seduced and abandoned by the road signs that get our hopes up. As we wind around the roads near the Spanish border, our cell phones get excited and we each get at least twenty text messages from T-Mobile, a new one every time we cross some imaginary line between service areas. The constant beeping would be more humorous if we weren't getting so frustrated trying to find our way. We are going in circles; everything keeps repeating, even our text messages.

The town of Borba is very quiet on this Sunday afternoon, and there is no sign of the antique stores the guide book mentions. The only signs of life are the people gathered outside the cafés in the intense heat. We drive into Vila Viçosa and inside the castle walls. We park outside the church and can hear a service in progress. The cemetery behind the church is filled with large white marble mausoleums. The castle is fascinating, with a moat and drawbridge into a section used as an archeological museum. There is no tour available when we arrive, and the tour when it does start will be in Portuguese only, so we leave.

Back at the Casa de Terena, there are nibbles and wine. There are other guests today, a couple from Spain who are visiting friends in the village, so they and their friends are there. One of the friends turns out to be an American anthropologist who came to Terena to do research over thirty years ago. She has stayed on as a part time resident. I speculate about how hard it must be to live among the people one has analyzed and she tells me that children of the residents have gone to university and been assigned to read her research about the village by her colleagues.

When the other guests leave, we go to dinner with Hazel at the Café-Restaurante Monte Agricola in Hortinhas. This is located on a street corner surrounded by farms. A woman on one side of the street is whitewashing her house now that the day is cooling off. A man working in his garden on the other side of the street stares at us as we park and go inside the restaurant. When we enter, a group of men sitting at a long table under the air conditioner get up and insist we take their place. There are seats outside, but it is still too hot and stuffy outside to consider eating there.

The proprietor starts bringing us food while his wife is behind the counter cooking. Hazel has told him that we only need two portions for the three of us. We start with a salad. Everything is home grown and fresh from the garden: tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers. Then there is a casserole with fresh pork. Hazel was right about the quantity, and there is more than enough. But the proprietor keeps coming around to ask if we want more of anything. For dessert he puts out a plate of home grown plums. These are wonderful, and as he sees me commenting on how good they are, he brings us another plateful. Hazel asks for a little more wine; the proprietor brings us a whole pitcher. The total cost for this terrific meal is 23 euros for the three of us.

People come and go while we are eating. There is a soap opera on the television that is attracting a lot of interest. People are still arriving with young children as we leave to go home for the night.

There is a cooling breeze, so I sit outside the inn for a while. Everyone on the street is on a front stoop; even the inn’s cat has one. The sound of the telephone company’s broken fan starts and stops and starts again. The light in front of the inn goes off and then on again. One of the neighbors waters the flowers outside her house in the cool evening air. At around 11:00 people start going inside. Me too.

Great trip report Nikki. I was in London last week for work. It was the kind of week where you only see the hotel, the office and the street between. On Saturday morning before I had to leave I got up early and went to the Borough Market. Resisted the temptation to smuggle a saucisson for my nephew and the cheeses (though I guess I could have gotten the aged ones through), bought some honey, onion marmalade, smoked paprika, cherries and chocolates. For the trip back to the hotel got a toasted cheese sandwich-nicely wrapped for eating with one hand while walking. I agree- hard to think of eating a toasted cheese sandwich anywhere else. Let me know when you are on the Cape maybe we can get together.

What a wonderful report! I definitely need to bookmark these places for my next trip to Portugal (I do hope there will BE a next trip...)

"So I enjoy the view with my eyes closed for a while."

Loved that line, and glad you made it a paragraph unto itself!

Nikki, this has been an absolute delight to read, I have really enjoyed it so very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Hope to see you (and you, Abby) in October. Just booked my plane reservation yesterday, flying out on FF miles.

BC

My thanks to everyone for sticking with me through this report and for the encouragement that makes it a pleasure to write these things. I have one more installment, and the trip will be over.