We woke up to the church bells at 8 am. Lovely! The only plans we had for the day revolved around food so we just headed out to see where the wind would take us.
Breakfast brought us to A Brasileira for definitely the best coffee so far….you could almost taste the beans!! Local coffee lore reveals that A Brasileira was the first place to serve a bica. We also had a pastel de nata and a pão de Deus (bread with coconut). The bread was very bready (oddly enough) and not very exciting. The pastel was acceptable – not eggy but the pastry didn’t hold up to Confeiteria Nacional’s. We then moved along up the street to Manteigaria to watch the pastels pastry being rolled out and the custard being made. And then we tasted them. OMG amazing! There was no trace of egg flavour, pastry was light and flaky, and we really liked them!!! The current favourite!
We retraced our steps from the day before down Rua Augusta with the 200 mm lens to take more photos. The street was packed with people enjoying the day. Being Easter Week there were definitely lots of fellow Spaniards.
We hopped the subway at Baixa-Chiado and went up to São Sebastian to see Parque Eduardo VII. I’m so glad we didn’t walk!!!!! The park was cool, and I would imagine sunset would be nice. We then walked down Avenida da Liberdade enjoying the cool shade of the trees and dreaming of being able to shop in the shops!
We reached the bottom right at 2 pm so perfect timing for our chicken lunch at Bonjardim. The cheese to start was amazing as was the bread. In Lisbon it seems to be typical to be brought bread (and possibly other nibbles) immediately. You are usually charged for this unless you ask them to take it away. The chicken was great too, but the breast meat was dry. The fact that it was still good means it must normally be amazing.
We passed on dessert to save room for yet another pastel de nata and bica; this time at Fábrica da Nata. It was an amazing fully-loaded pastel that could barely be contained by the delicate pastry. There are a couple of locations in Lisbon with one right at Praça dos Restauradores, which is where we went. It was a lovely (and refreshing) setting in the back room.
As we headed towards home for a rest, we tried our next ginjinha. This time it was just a few blocks from the apartment at the legendary (and tiny) Os Amigos da Severa. After an nice pastel and ginjinha-induced siesta, we were ready to take on the castle!
Dreading the walk up, we decided to take the wee bus #737 all the way up to the castle gates from Praça da Figueira. Let me tell you, it was worth it’s weight in gold! Apart from the lovely views, another highlight of the castle visit was the peacock community – they were very entertaining! There were loads of them all “chatting” to each other on the ground and even in the trees. The coolest moment was seeing one in flight since that is something I had never seen before.
We had a ramble around the castle and ramparts until sunset and then settled in at the café terrace with a beer to watch night fall.
Once it was dark, we circled around to Miradouro da Graça to check out the city lights. We then took Tram 28 to Praça do Comércio to see the arch and everywhere lit up. We were still very full from all of the various afternoon treats so we opted for a ham & cheese brioche supper from one of the many bakeries lining Rua Augusta. This was pretty much the only food fail of the trip, but also the least important so I’m okay with that! 🙂
Looking for more Lisbon adventures? Click on the links for Day 1, Day 2, Day 4, and Day 5! Or maybe you just want the Coles Notes Version?