The Alfama! (or not)

This is a street in Alfama.


My plan for today was to do a walking route my guide book gives for the Alfama, a neighborhood of windy streets and beautiful views. I bought the all-day metro pass (that works on everything) and took Tram 28 into Alfama. Wait, let me back up. I never took the tram before and I don't have a picture to show you. The are kind of like the SF cable cars in that they have a certain look, are tourist attractions and have only a few routes. I wasn't sure where to pick it up. While waiting at what I thought was the stop, a tram stopped and its door opened. I ran to get it to have the driver shoo me away and say something I, of course, didn't understand. This is not a big deal. Any logical person knows it's not a big deal. But I did have quite the shame buzz for some time following the incident. It's interesting to observe myself having these reactions. It's good I know logically it's a habit or some kind of stored mechanism/memory being triggered. But it was there.
Now the book says to take the tram because it will get you up the hills without having to climb them on one's own.
I did find the place to get the tram 28 but because I couldn't see the street signs and the driver didn't make announcements (and I have to say, the description of the route in the book sucks a little ass) I was not clear where to get off. I got off someplace that seemed logical but couldn't locate myself. When I used my phone, I think it said I was about 3 miles away from there starting point of the walk, Miradouro da Senhora do Monte (which was in at one of many viewpoints of the city.) So I decided to walk. These streets are not always well signed and the GPS was a little spazzy and about 7/8 of the way through, I came to the road I was on when I caught tram 28 to begin with. I then walked up to the viewpoint. So the tram was a complete waste of time. The views were incredible though. I tried to go to the next point on the walk. I'm not sure if I got there but there was another great viewpoint, like the one above, but perhaps a little bit to the left. The third stop was a monastery. At this point, the GPS is a complete mess and despite getting help, I don't think I found it. I was pretty frustrated and a little angry at myself. It was hot, I was sweating, had spent a good amount of the time walking uphill and got almost no where. And what's sad is that I wasn't even enjoying the fuck-up. I plan to go back to that area, get off the tram wherever and just walk around. No more of this pre-planned walk bullshit.

I cut my loses and took another tram 28 back to the market because at this point I needed to eat.
This is my driver's back.

This is a sandwich with pork, shoestring potato chips and mayonnaise (and lettuce.)



I decided to make good on the all-day metro pass and took the train to the Museu Nacional do Azulejo, the tile museum, which I'd been wanting to see, and which is not centrally located. It was a 1/2 hour walk to the museum from the train stop, next to a highway. There is nothing of interest, that I could tell, near the museum, but the work was really beautiful. Portugal is known for their tiles (which I discovered shortly after arriving) so I wanted to see what that was all about

This is the train station

I really liked these pink tiles that were shaped rather than painted.

And then it got all churchy. It was quite beautiful and ornate. Whenever I travel, the religious locations are always the most beautiful and I know so many people draw significance from them other than their beauty. I don't envy them but I am aware of the stark difference in our experience of these places. I didn't want to make that walk back so I found the bus to get me back to a good train station.

I stopped at my guest house to create the earlier post from today. I told myself I would use that all-day pass to go somewhere good for dinner. I seem to gravitate to these markets. There is an actual food market that was closed but this section is all food vendors- a lot of seafood. I got a salad... and apple pie with condensed milk on top.
It's pretty ridiculous that I am taking pictures of all my food. Mostly I text them to my mother.

I realize another up-side to traveling alone is that no one has to be affected by my moods or unreasonable reactions these little annoyances. I get to make stupid mistakes and have my feelings without worrying about anybody else's feelings for a change. In my world, that's a pretty rare experience.

My working plan is to head to Sintra tomorrow (which means taking a train outside Lisbon.) Quite a few places are closed on Mondays so I figured it would be a good time to see the castles.