Today we had no schedule. No driver, no guide, no tour. Our plan was to lounge around in the room, have a late breakfast and then go wander down Avenue de Liberdade to see what there was to see.

As soon as we walked out of the hotel we were surprised by a classic car show taking place in the boulevard, stretching a hundred yards or more in each direction from the hotel. American, European and even a couple of Japanese cars were in evidence. The earliest cars were Ford Model T’s, along with a larger number of Model A’s. More recent cars included VW Beetles and Vans from the 1970s, a 1964-1/2 Mustang, and several Lotus models that I didn’t date.

Almost all of the cars were in concours condition – paint shiny, chrome sparkling, leather in nice shape. One or two were exhibited in “aged” condition. It was amazing to see Model T’s and Model A’s looking like they just came off the showroom floor.

I was particularly intrigued by the Mustang, as this ‘64 was very similar to my 1965 Mustang – same crappy six cylinder engine and three-speed transmission. The major differences are that mine was a convertible, while this is a hardtop, and mine looked like it was ready to be junked in 1969 (1) while this one is beautiful.

After viewing all of the cars, we continued down the avenue towards the downtown area known as Baixa. This area is close to the Tagus River and forms a flat plain in between the hills. It was devastated by the 1755 earthquake and resulting tsunami, and subsequently rebuilt as a modern grid, with streets laid out in right angles to each other. It’s now a major tourist area, with small shops and restaurants, and is anchored at the river end by a very large plaza Praça do Comercio and arch, Arco da Rue Augusta. While you can visit the top of the arch for the views, we simply viewed it from the plaza and then moved on.

Many of the streets in the Baixa are pedestrian only and some of them are filled with tables for the restaurants that line the streets. We noticed that all of these are located on the east/west oriented streets, thus providing shade from the building on the south side of the street. Given that it’s 93F at 5:00pm as I write this, that is probably a good idea.

We stopped at restaurant to see if they had pizza with no garlic, and after some discussion between the manager and the chef, we were told that he’d be happy to use some sauce with no garlic. So we ordered the standard 12” that they sell everywhere here, thinking that we could always get another if we were still hungry. There was no need – the pie had so much cheese on it that we could only finish half of it.

After that, back to the room for some R&R before returning to JNcQUOI for dinner. This visit was not as satisfying as our visit a couple of days ago, proving that you can’t go home again.

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(1) Mine had been in an accident before I bought it for $400. The chassis was bent, the driver’s door was a different color than the rest of the body, the front hood release required use of a screwdriver to open, and it burned a quart of oil with every tank of gas.