We checked out of our hotel this morning to begin a long drive down to Lisbon. I have to say, I enjoyed Porto. It’s a real city, with real people. Yet it’s not too crowded. And while it’s small enough to walk around the center city, it is very hilly.
Anyway, enough of Porto. On to Lisbon, the largest city and capital of Portugal. Our driver, Pedro (1), picked us up at 10:00 (2) with all of our luggage, and we headed to our first stop, the Vista Alegre Porcelain Museum.
Vista Alegre is a very old manufacturer which has converted its old factory to a museum with many of the pieces they’ve manufactured over the years, and with information about the porcelain manufacturing process. This sounds pretty hackneyed and corny, but was actually very enjoyable. The collection of pieces is extensive and extends back to the company’s early days, and up to the current day. It shows how the company has broadened its product line to meet the market.
At the end of the museum, there is (of course) a gift shop. We usually just walk through gift shops at museums, but this one had a large selection of very nice pieces. As we hadn’t spent a Euro-cent on anything to bring home, Sally chose four small plates that can be useful when she serves.
From there we drove to Aveiro. This is a former fishing town that has a couple of canals running through it. Enough canals that it’s self-billed as the “Venice of Portugal”. Trust me, it’s nothing like Venice, but has its own charm. It’s a little village that spans the canals which seems to be mostly guest houses and vacation apartments. And a lot of tourists. There are boat rides on the canals, and restaurants on the quays around the canals. We ate at one, and it was quite pleasant sitting in the shade with a beer and our sandwiches, watching people walk by, and the tourist boats cruising down the canal every so often.
After lunch it was off to Lisbon. It took us over two hours to get there from Aveiro. Our hotel, the Hotel Valverde Lisboa, is owned by the same company as the Valverde Palace we stayed at in Sintra, our first two nights in Portugal so long ago. The two couldn’t be more different. The Sintra hotel is an old royal palace and still needs significant renovation to meet modern standards. The Lisbon Valverde is made up of a few town houses on the biggest boulevard in central Lisbon, Avenue de Liberdade. The portions we’ve seen – the public areas, restaurant, pool and of course our room – have all been fixed up very nicely. Where the vibe in the Sintra Valverde was 16th century palace, this one is Danish modern – clean and sleek.
This street has all of the most expensive brands (Louis Vitton, Dior, Patek Philippe, Roche Bubois, etc). It’s also ridiculously crowded. Traffic is basically one or two lanes each way with a wide park-like mall separating them, and is stop and go into the evening. The pedestrian traffic is not much better. To top it off, there’s construction blocking the sidewalk right outside of the hotel entrance.
Once inside, you’re confronted with a completely refurbished interior with Danish modern furniture in the small public rooms and, at least, our room. Our room is in the back of a townhouse adjacent to the main hotel building, and is reached by a series of narrow hallways, It’s all quite nice, but a little unusual.
Our room itself is a sitting room and a small bedroom. We have lots of closet space, which is nice because we will be here for five nights and can unpack completely. And the sitting room has very comfortable chairs and a sofa. So we can relax here in comfort.
Sally was exhausted from the day, so I walked down towards the downtown area – closer to the river Tagus – and found a side street with a dozen or more restaurants. Dinner was fine, as was the half bottle of wine I had with it.
(1) I’m not actually sure his name was Pedro; that’s who our itinerary says was picking us up, but I didn’t catch his name when he introduced himself.
(2) We had pushed this back from the planned time of 9:30.
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