adventure

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Pasteis De Belem

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The previous post in this series is here..

We had one more stop in Belem area. It was the Church and a pastry shop right near the church called Pasteis de Belem. This bakery has been around for a long long time and they have this one delicacy that is egg based. (angeye namakku appeattu!).

San kept raving about it as did our guide. So off we went, stood in line. Our guide knew the staff. so we got a little closer to the baking tour which was nice. Then we got to eat. I opted for a different pastry as the strong smell of eggs did not agree with me.

The two ladies were rolling their eyes constantly at my hot cocoa and pastry.

We got some to go in hopes that we could keep it in the fridge and bring it to the kids. The expiry date out of fridge was going to be 36 hours tops. So we got as freshly made stuff as we could get. Then we drove back to Baixa area. Our guide dropped us off and took off to do homework! Apparently a student doing this guide thing part time!

A video highlight reel of this segment.

It was still bright out. So we went to find dinner and decided to walk back to the gate and water front. We were treated to some interesting sights and sounds the rest of the evening. That in the next post..

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Our first day in Lisbon

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Yes.. this is part of a missed series of blog posts on the 25th wedding anniversary trip.. that trip itself is nearing its anniversary.. so I better write about it before it becomes murky.

We flew from Prague to Lisbon first thing in the morning. The previous post in this series is here..

We took a Taxi from the airport that dropped us off in the Baixa area (cars were not allowed inside this main road that leads to the gate. Had to roll our carry on suitcases on the cobblestones for a good 20 minutes and reached our hotel. It was cute and cozy. Bepoet was the name. We put our things in the room and promptly came down to see as many things as we could for the rest of the evening and night. Given how crazy we are when it comes to covering points on city tours, have to break this into multiple posts..

We got a map and finally decided to walk to the first stop, the cathedral. I did impress a bunch of church goers with my backbending ability while holding an iPhone steady to take this almost 270 degree pano shot.

After we walked around the cathedral up a slope, there was a bus that could take us around all the spots. We decided to help a local girl with her tuk tuk business and had her take us around the city. First we went up to the vista point on the local hill, and from there we made it to Belem. Sangeetha has already been to Lisbon before and she also turned into a tourguide. I was getting a stereophonic guided tour at some point. On the way we saw the replica of the golden gate bridge, a replica of the Jesus from Rio.

A gallery of landscapes photos from this leg of the tour

and a portrait gallery

Once at Belem we visited the Vasco de Gama monument, the Belem tower and a church. We only caught the museum from a distance as there was no time to visit the museum. The lady was on the clock and the museum was closing. After this we were going to stop to eat something special. Both the guide and San hyped this up to no end.. that on the next post..

but before that.. a video highlights reel of our start to seeing Lisbon!

at first glance, Lisbon is a city like no other city we have visited before!

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An old city center unlike any other - Prague

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The previous post in this series is here..

After we said bye to our guide and group, we walked back to the Kafka statue and our hotel with a stop at the clock. There was not a big crowd as it was not on the hour.

We watched the Kafka head do a few turns and walked into the mall. There was an Indian food place in the second floor which had Chai and missi roti’s. So we sampled some stuff there and watched the shoppers.

Then we decided to go back to our room, wash and change and go back to see the clock and Prague by night. As soon as we got ready, we went for dinner at Masala, the Indian restaurant right next to the hotel.

The food was great but it was my mistake not to tell the guy “no sesame seeds”.. They brought me butter naan with sesame seeds. By the time we waited for the new Naan to arrive, things got cold as they got a flurry of customers within a 10 minute window! All said and done, the food was great. We were happy!

We were literally in a small backyard surrounded by high rise buildings.. it was beautiful.. this dinner was actually one of the nicest dinners we had in recent times!

Our walk back through the square. The memories of San twirling around like a little princess in this square are priceless.

There were a lot of captures on this walk. Here are the galleries

portrait format gallery..

a few pano shots of the clouds rolling in

We walked back to see the clock chime and there was hardly any room to stand in that crowd. We watched this “antique clock” do its thing and walked further out towards Charles bridge. The sunset was blurred by clouds and it was getting dark and ominous as there was rain in the forecast. We were both wearing chappals and once it started raining, we made a run back towards our hotel which was a good 20 minutes away.

Here is a tip. Don’t run with chappals on cobble stone streets!

We made it back to our hotel and got some well deserved rest.

A highlight video of this last part..

After this it was going to be a ride to the airport in the morning and fly out to our last destination on the grand tour! We did so much in those two and a half days that it will take me a long time to finish writing about.

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.