Getting to Lisbon

Our final 3 nights are in Lisbon, as usual we save the big city for last.  Our train from Guimaraes connected in Porto where we met up with Wilmington friends.  We had an outstanding lunch that might have been the best meal I've had here so far.  

The place was in my Lonley Planet book.  Seems like lately so many places in the LP books are overrun, but this one didn't have a huge wait.  

The best places are the ones that don't seat more than 20 people .... They do what they do very well. 

We ate and then walked them to the bridge so they could hook up with their cruise boat.  We climbed a billion stairs to get up to the top of the bridge where people could walk across for a great view of Porto.

We easily made our train to Lisbon and settled in for the three hour trip.  In Lisbon we had to connect to the Metro, but not understanding how it all worked we got on what turned out to be the wrong train.   Maya figured it out and I asked the person sitting next to me where the train was going....and we jumped off just in time.  The metro station was underground....duh we should have known that! When we pulled into our stop, Baxia-Chiado, there were three exits and we didn't have a clue which one would lead us up and out to where we needed to go.  We went up the wrong exit first, walked a few blocks, realized we were going the wrong way and had to backtrack.  All this with just a paper map as we are just using our phones with wifi in our accomodation only.  

First impression of Lisbon: all of Europe is here on vacation.  It's a little Times Square, a little Fisherman's Wharf, and a lot crowded.  Can't say I love it.  We wandered around a bit and made our way to the Doll Hospital which I read about on atlasobscura.com.  For 2 Euros we got a tour of a doll museum and repair shop, they take their work very seriously and have work sent to them from all over the world.  Understand, we weren't there because we like dolls or toys.  We went there for for the creep factor.  Maya is particularly creeped out by dolls and it makes her skin crawl the way they "stare" at her.  There are bins of doll parts, tortured ruins of dolls needing repair, and entire rooms filled with dolls.

Look at her freaked out face.  She can barely contain herself.

It's a box of eyeballs.

We are staying at Shidao Hostel, pretty low key with a wide range of ages, in other words I am not the oldest person here.  The 20 somethings are quiet, it's not a party hostel....obviously I actively avoid paces like that.  It's darn expensive though, 70$ a night, ouch! That's the going rate for a decent private room with a shared bath in a clean hostel, which surprised me.  It does include a light breakfast and a communal kitchen. The dorm bunk beds are a bit cheaper elsewhere but I'm not interested in that scene.  Our room has these twin beds, other rooms have full size beds.

We didn't do much else in Lisbon, except for visit the large cathedral...

Tomorrow we will take a train for a day trip to Evora to visit a chapel lined with bones, see Roman ruins, and eat falafel.