Lisbon - 1st Impressions - Wonderful

Lisbon home of the explorers. Vasco de Gama. I loved history in school. I loved the explorers, how could I have forgot how important Lisbon Portugal was to the shaping and discovering of the world. As I started to research this country that I was going to for the water, waves and sunshine I realized very quickly that the history here is as extensive as any European country in the world. The Moors, the Muslims, the Romans, the Knights Templar, to name a few all have history here and unfortunately on this trip we will only see a small portion of it. Definitely could stay here for a month and never get bored (just homesick LOL)



Lisbon is a lovely city, we had a great airbnb on Dom Carlos Ave right near the parliament buildings and right in the historical part of Lisbon, so we were able to walk everywhere. Our exercise started with climbing 4 flights of stairs to our apartment. Helped work off our red wine :). Thomas, the property manager, had a bottle of wine and 4 little "pastel de nata" - it is basically a creme brulee in a pastry.  Delish but oh so sweet and definitely not lo-cal. Jim fell in love with them.  I thought they were a mini quiche - great breakfast food - right.  NOT!!!.  I had 1 and then the odd bite of Jim's over the week.  

The city is covered with graffiti and some amazing works of art as every blank wall became a canvas for someone's artistic talent.  

Lisbon also has a great transit system, trams, buses, trains and the taxis are so reasonable, about 1/2 the price of Toronto.  Tram 28 takes you to all the main tourist areas of Lisbon.  

Lisbon might be hillier than San Francisco so our calves are getting a great work out. Thursday’s walk was around our neighbourhood. Beautiful little apartments with their lovely little balconies and ironwork around the windows, lots of little market stores with fresh fruit and veggies. We asked Thomas about drinking the water and he looked at us aghast. The Portuguese don’t drink water, they drink wine, sometimes with a little glass of water on the side LOL. We decided to opt for bottled water for our trip.

After all this walking we needed some food and a wee glass of wine.  We found a Cafe right at the bottom of the street called Opolo. I had a mushroom burger with a chickpea paste on top, delish. Next stop was a wee nap.

After our nap and a glass of wine, we set off to find a restaurant for dinner, so we set off in the other direction and came across this great market - The Time-out Market, which was like a classy food court, with kiosks by some top chefs and long tables to eat at. It had a great little bar in the middle called of course “The Time Out Bar”. 

Dinner was still beckoning us, so we had another we wander and found a restaurant called Otto. Fish and octopus are so popular here in Lisbon, not a fav for Doug or I so luckily we keep finding restaurants that have pasta and pizza :). Tonight 3 of us had a shrimp linguine.  The Portuguese wines are amazing, and we had a different bottle with every dinner. :)

    

After dinner we headed down for one more drink at the Time Out Bar, well 1 turned into a couple of portos and voila we were talking to everyone. A great night, our cab was calling us and so was bed.

    

    

 My new favourite drink and our favourite waitress and waiter.  

    

Tip:  If you head to the bathroom and glance up quickly and see "homens", it's not a spelling mistake that means "mens".  Ooops !!!!!  btw we never had a problem on our whole trip finding a bathroom.  Didn't see one restaurant that said "customers only" and I walked into a few of them.  

Finally we are off to Tuscany and San Gimignano - Chianti Time

Has everyone seen "Under the Tuscan Sun", well if you haven't you should and if you have you definitely want to visit Tuscany.  Our tour guide said it caused an explosion in tourism to Tuscany.  Today we took a private tour out to the countryside with stops at 2 wineries and San Gimignano, that is the town off in the distance in the picture above.   Needless to say we are all super excited and our driver "Ilaria" from Fun in Tuscany Chianti Wine Tours is amazing.  Funny and so knowledgeable, it is going to be a great day.  

Just an hour outside of Florence is the beautiful Fattoria Poggio-Alloro (Bay Leaf Hills)  our first stop.  After a tour of the winery, we enjoy some appetizers and a tasting of their beautiful wines while overlooking the amazing wine fields and San Gimignano.  Yes it is only 11 am.  A great way to start the day.

 Along side their grapes are their amazing olive groves. 

Is there anything better than some amazing local cheese, fresh olives and a wee sampling of their organic wines to start the day.  The sun is shining and our cheeks are starting to glow. 

 Nothing better than popping into their local store for some treasures to bring home (at least back to Florence).  The olive oil made it home, the wine was drank. 

 This is the famous Tuscan cows - The Chianina, served best rare with a nice bottle of Chianti.  This farm and area is also famous for their saffron which flowers in November and is known as the "gold of San Gimignano.  Would love to come back here and do one of their cooking classes with all fresh grown products, while sipping their wine of course. 

Next stop San Gimignano, still haven't figured out how to pronounce it.  It is known as the "Town of Fine Towers.  It is a true walled hill town, so be prepared for lots of ups and downs.  There are 14 towers still standing out of a total of 72 in its heyday.  These were all owned by the patrician families, who each tried to build the biggest tower.  Even back then rules were put into place to maintain the integrity and beauty of the town and surrounding countryside.  360 degrees around the town are wineries, saffron fields, and the most beautiful countryside. 

 Oh yes, after all those hills we had to stop for a gelato. 

Next stop was a lunch stop at Tenuta Torciano just outside of San Gimignano.  Jim unfortunately wasn't feeling the best, so we had to sacrifice ourselves and drink some of his favourite brunellos. 

 Stephanie bonded with one of the local chickens. 

 The courtyard was amazing and lunch spectacular. 

 I think our sommelier was in the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun".  If not they should do a sequel.  I would love to be a bit player in it, just sitting in the background drinking wine and drooling :)

 Ilaria our tour guide went above and beyond including giving a sword to Stephanie that she was to use to open a bottle of champagne that David was holding.  This seemed like a great idea after drinking wine all day.  :). David survived.  Such Fun in Tuscany. 

Thank you Ilaria for a great day.  We had so much fun we decided to book another one for my birthday this time with a stop in Sienna.  :)