Lisbon, Portugal Part 1 - Praça Do Rossio, Praça Do Comercio, Castelo De Sao Jorge

Our Bed and Breakfast in Lisbon - The Lavra Guesthouse

View from our window

This was the Mom&Pop, hole-in-the-wall restaurant we found on the street of our B&B. We ate here 3 times. It was incredible food, and very cheap. The owners were very friendly and did not speak a word of English so we had fun trying to speak Portuguese and using hand gestures to order.

Restaurante Sol Posto (Sol Poe-shto en Portuguesa)

Wayne said this was the best Salmon he ever had.

The lobby of our B&B

The beautiful tiled facades on apartment buildings

One of the markets on our street

 Making our way down. The City Centre of Lisbon and surrounding hills are roughly shaped like a "V" with the main stretch of streets being the bottom of the "V" and very steep hills on either side. On one hill top is the Castle (Castelo De Sao Jorge) and on the other are Bairro Alto and the Chiado (shopping areas). Our B&B was on the top of another steep hill sort of in between the Chiado and Castle areas.

 The main sight in Lisbon - laundry hanging from every possible window.

Rua Augusta - The very center road leading from Praça (meaning Square, basically) do Rossio out to the water, at Praça do Comercio (pronounced "Prah-sha"). There are stores and cafes lining this street. The main portion of 'downtown' Lisbon is a grid with a Square (Praça) at either end and these long streets between them.
Overall Lisbon was an incredibly walk-able city and it really wasn't far to go from corner to corner of the map. (Even hauling Norah) 

Had to take a picture of Casa Canada

The far end of Rua Augusta - leading out to Praça do Comercio - (the main square with the yellow buildings, right on the water).

Norah - our little rag doll, asleep in her backpack.

Here's looking out toward the Ponte 25 de Abril (the "25th of April Bridge", the date of their Revolution). This looks exactly like the Golden Gate Bridge, and was built by an American Company (the same company who build the Bay Bridge in San Fran., not the Golden Gate). So, interestingly, all the steel was brought from the U.S. for this bridge. Factual Tidbit: The Golden Gate Bridge is the 9th largest Suspension bridge in the world and the Ponte 25 de Abril is the 21st.

To the left of the bridge, is also the 370 foot statue of Jesus - The Cristo Rei. This is similar to, and inspired by, the statue in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. We so badly wanted to take a trip out there but it's deceptively far and very expensive to get there. You can even take an elevator to the top so we were sad to miss that one.

(Here's a shot of it - 370 feet high) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Almada_Cristo_Rei.jpg)

Poor thing.

The 28 Trolley coming down from the Castle (as we're walking up). Can't escape the Coca-Cola ads.

At the top: another trolly taking people back down to the city.

A sweet little street within the castle walls. There are full neighborhoods within the Castle walls where people live and work. And believe it or not, cars fit up this street. One nearly ran over my toes, in fact. =)

A cafe in the Castle. There were about 15 peacocks roaming around and sitting in the trees. Norah kept saying "Yets go see the tiny lovely peacocks again".

Looking over the city, out toward the Ponte 25 de Abril (bridge).

In incredible house just outside the castle wall (right). They have a huge house, a pool on the second terrace and then a guesthouse/loung at the top near the wall.

Here, she's trying to snap.

I love how they're both looking the same way - like they're both reading the menu on the wall.

I LOVE THIS

I ALSO Love this! Prosciutto and Melon! Mmmm!

Daddy and Norah at the castle!

Norah "snapping" some more

(4 year olds on a field trip to the castle. There's a tiny school in the village within the castle walls)

This man was playing the guitar inside the castle walls and Norah stood here for 10 minutes, dancing. She had more of an audience than he did. =)

At the cafe - where the peacocks roam, we finally got a show! Everyone in the entire cafe jumped up to take pictures (including us) and this went on for nearly 20 minutes. He was really puttin' on a show for the lady peacocks.

This one was interested but she wasn't going to be won over so easily.

Here's the crowd! He was so funny - he would puff up his feathers and then just rotate, verrry slowly. Most of the ladies were unimpressed. =)

We decided to take the famous "28" trolley down the hill from the castle. Every time, without realizing it, we did the huge hikes up the hills (usually the point of taking the trolley) and then we would always take the trolley down the hill. Of course we only did this twice because we were too cheap and would just walk both ways.

Discoteca

Hm. This seems out of place.

The monument in the background is dedicated to the Portuguese explorers and you can see their profiles from about a mile away. Here I was trying to catch Norah's profile to create some amazing comparison. It failed. =)  

Monument to the Explorers in Belem. Here you can see we're quite a ways West of the Red Bridge. So, we started the day in the city, walked all through Lisbon, walked up the main hill (mountain) to the Castelo De Sao Jorge (The Castle), walked back down the mountain and then took a 15 minute tram ride out to Belem (to then walk another mile to get to this tower). We covered a lot of ground that first day.

Tower in Belem

Norah catching up on some Zoo reading. This is one of the tiny cafes in the middle of the main street through town - Rua Augusta.

Norah in her kingdom. As you can tell, our room was a bit bare-bones but it was spotless with a nice bathroom, which is all I require. This is Norah watching Caillou on the iPad after a long day of running through Lisbon.

Our sweet little street

Heading out for day 2!

Praça (Prasha) Do Rossio