Lisbon Day 1: Up to Chiado & Bairro Alto, dinner at.....Super Mario? And other stuffs.....

I felt so satisfied after that wonderful bifana and a beer, that I didn't even complain when the Missus decided that we hadn't done enough walking for the day. She had decided that we needed to get on up to Chiado and Bairro Alto, Lisbon's bohemian and nightlife district. Luckily, the Missus didn't insist on climbing up that hill and we just walked past Rossio Station and the Avenida Palace Hotels.....

And catch a ride on the funicular, the Elevador da Gloria, using our Viva Viagem Card.

Which I was told has been snaking up the hill linking Baixa with Bairro Alto since 1885. A bunch of other tourists jumped on, the guy asking me "where is this going?" I told him, "up the hill....." He smiled and told me, "I really don't know where this is going, but it looks like fun...."

To the right of the funicular stop is the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcantara. One word I learned rather quickly was "miradouro" which meant viewpoint. Anytime we saw that word, we followed the signs..... usually ending in a wonderful sight like this.

This little park/garden was a nice place to check out the views of the city. It also helped to get us a little more oriented with our surroundings.

The narrow and rather congested streets down to Chiado are lined with Churches(of course), boutiques, and theatre's. This seems to be the place where the hip hang out.

At the end of Rua Garrett is a multi-floor mall. You exit head to the Sportszone and go downstairs to exit back in Baixa (thanks Rick Steves!). We did make a stop at H&M. We travel light. I personally had less than 6 kilos of clothes and shoes. My strategy is to pack light and if necessary, buy a jacket or something. Since there were Zara and H&M stores everywhere and it was in the 40's at night, I bought a hoodie for 10euros and the Missus a sweater for about the same price. We were set for the rest of the trip. We dropped by Pingo Doce and bought water....we were set.

We had booked our room at Lisbon Short Stay Apartments, which was basically a conversion. The room was decently sized with a kitchenette and there was even a washer and dryer on our floor. However, the place was rather dark and a bit funky, with kind of an industrial feel.

The staff was nice, but really couldn't provide a whole lot of information nor recommendations. Though they did provide a tiny map that included the metro routes which we kept the entire trip. It was time for dinner.......

There are a couple of things you need to know about eating in Lisbon and Portugal in general; folks don't eat until at least 730pm. You will be enticed by a bunch of "appetizers/bread/olives" put out in front of you. Note that these are not free, you will charged for whatever you touch; feel free to put them to the side and not eat. You won't be charged...we found that many places will ask if you want these and take them away if you tell them no. There are often two portion sizes offered on menus; dose and meia dose. We found that meia dose, literally a "half order" is usually enough to feed one as an entree.

We had dinner reservations for the next two evenings, so one this night we just wanted something simple and easy. We headed back up to Chiado, past some really touristy looking places, up stairs and a mildly steep climb. In a little alley on a side street we found a place I read about on Chowhound called Super Mario....really, it was named Super Mario.

Into that doorway past the little sign was a simple tiled restaurant.

Tables were simply covered with paper......this was just a nice and homey place.

 As we peeked into the door, we saw three gentlemen having beers and pub grub. We weren't sure if they were "really" open, but the guys waved us in and pointed to a table and called out to the back. They also gave us bread with slices of pork on them....sharing their food with us! I really liked the folks in Portugal! We later offered to buy them a round, but they refused, telling our Server that they had to head home. We had lucked out....it started pouring right when we sat down.

We started off with a bottle of Vinho Verde....the verde doesn't really mean "green" in terms of color....it refers more to how "young" the wine is. This was light, slightly fizzy, and more sweet than dry.

The food at Super Mario can be best described by the locals who told us, "very typico......"

The Missus wanted to try Caldo Verde, a simple, but hearty soup thickened by potato, containing thin slices of kale.

For my first sit down meal in Portugal, it just seemed right that I had bacalhau. I hadn't had anything made with salt cod since I was a teenager. So I went with the Bacalhau Frito, fried bacalhau.

Nothing fancy, perfectly decent, salty, but not overly so, perhaps a bit too many bones for me. The rice....well, I never had decent rice in any dish in Portugal, that's just the way things went.

This was sardinhas (sardine) season, so the Missus would get that whenever She could. It looked fresh here.

The sardines were fresh, very nice....but man, those potatoes....in fact all the potatoes in Portugal taste, well, like really good potatoes.....possibly the best other than what we had in Peru.

We had killed the first bottle of Vinho Verde, with no problems, nor affects, so we ordered a second.

About this time a Korean woman who looked to be in her 30's entered the restaurant....this was pretty much a first for us. We always see Korean tourists traveling in tours or packs. This was the first time I saw one traveling solo. We shared a glass of wine with her. It just seemed like the right thing to do. She was very nice and indeed travelling solo. She told us, "I like to travel and don't have friends...." I'm sure she didn't mean literally. She was from Seoul and travelled all over Europe because, "I like to drink...." then telling us about how good Porto was. She had dinner at Super Mario's the night before and enjoyed it so much she decided to return.

While the food was nothing to write home about, we enjoyed our dinner at Super Mario. The service was nice, so was the vinho verde, and the Missus enjoyed he caldo verde. It was relaxed, the guys having drinks in the place were very warm and hospitable. It was a good first dinner to get things started.

Restaurante Super Mario
Rua do Duque 9
Lisbon, Portugal

There was still fading daylight left when we finished dinner and walked down the hill. Lisbon seemed very safe, so we strolled around a bit, taking in a bit more......

We found a bakery run by Chinese and got some Pastel de Nata......

The crust was just wrong and the custard was too sweet and eggy. These were the worst of our time in Lisbon.

We headed back to our room, opened the window..... the immediate area was very urban and dark. We watched the street scene below. Folks heading home, dodging the drizzles, then the next wave of folks heading out for the evening.

I'd come to find that Lisbon sleeps and wakes late. I woke to folks laughing and yelling a couple times during the night....the last at 330am. Still, we were exhausted and the sleep did us good! We'd be having another full day tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Comments

[Faye]

The story of the lone Korean woman made me smile. How awesome (and brave) that she went on a European trip on her own. Bravo. Your trip looked beautiful and so relaxing.

[nhbilly]

Thanks for the travel tips. Now if I ever get a chance to travel.

[nhbilly]

One more thing I noticed that Churrasqueria sign. What's up with that? I'm curious.
Thanks

[Kirk]

Hi Faye - I really gotta hand it to her. Don't know about relaxing....man we did a bunch of walking!

Hi Billy - You do know that Brazil was once a Portuguese colony and was granted independance in 1825. Even more interesting was that during the Napoleonic wars, John VI fled to the colony of Brazil with appox 10,000 people and Rio de Janeiro was established as the Kingdom of Portugal. The ties between the two countries is complicated. Anyway, there are tons of grill houses called Churrasquerias in Lisbon. They are actually great places to eat between the hours of regular restaurants since most are open all the time. The sign is for a Churrasqueria right next to Super Mario. Shows how tiny the sign for that restaurant is.

[Nhbilly]

Ahhh, thanks for the history. I will have to research it.

[AZ]

The scenery is to die for, I'm never going to see the places you visit unless I die and come back as an albatross, seagull, or some variety of winged creature and then all I'll want to eat is raw fish or some discarded garbage. Hell!

[Kirk]

Hi Billy - What I kinda butchered in my story was that Rio was the capital of the Portuguese Empire for that period.

Hi AZ - Oh man, I hope you do get a chance to visit some of these places. In the end, it's not the destination, but the journey that really makes it worthwhile.

[kat]

the architecture is amazing!

[Kirk]

Hi Kat - It's very distinctive, we really liked it.