No Moss For Us

For our last few hours in Lisbon, we rose early to check the last few sites off our list. We started with the Lisbon train station, which is filled with beautiful blue and white tile murals:

From there, we walked to see the Blue Church:

And then on to see two more churches with beautiful blue tile facades. What was unique is that these two are separated by a house that is only a few feet wide! This is because years and years ago, Porto law forbid two churches from sharing a wall. Amusingly enough, the churches found a way to bend the rules.

After all this blue and white, we realized we still hadn’t eaten breakfast, so we grabbed pastries from a small café in the main square. The square was almost completely empty as it was early on a Sunday morning, so we passed the time enough the peacefulness… until a peloton of a bike raced buzzed right passed us!

Refueled and realizing we had time to spare, we realized we could have another shot at the tower climb. We walked over, fortunately found it open, and of course, climbed all the things!

And so concludes Part I of our day; Part II was the journey back to Lisbon via train.

Upon arrival in Lisbon, we realized two things: 1) We had to find a way to kill a couple hours before our friends arrived and could let us into the AirBnB; and 2) the Lisbon Oceanario aquarium was a short walk from the train station. The Oceanario had rave reviews online, so we decided to check it out. It was a pretty nice aquarium, particularly with a giant central tank in the middle, filled with sharks, giant sunfish, various rays, schools of fish, and a HUGE grouper (click below for a gallery of fish pics!)

From there, we caught a cab to the Barrio Alto neighborhood to meet the gang.

After catching up and settling in, we went out together for a tasty dinner of grilled things (pork, veal).  

It was tasty, and fun, thanks to our cheeky waiter, and overall great to see our friends!

-G & J