Portugal 2

We finished our pure sightseeing days by meeting a friend of mine from Grenoble named Sofia for a local delicacy, 'pasteis de belem'.  It was kind of like an egg/custard tart, but tasted creamy and delicious, especially good with a little cinnamon and powdered sugar on top.  

We did manage to fit in a little tourist-action around the conference, during times when the meetings were un-interesting or not pertinent to us, or during the fantastically long 3.5 hour lunch break each day.  We both had a lot of fun eating Western food again - Adam was particularly happy that he could get meat without it being smothered in some sort of soy-based spicy sauce!

I still tried to be adventurous with the food; this was a shrimp bread/gumbo thing special in Portugal.  It was good but oh so filling!

The area around the conference center was right on the river with great views (look familiar anyone? - built by the same company as the Golden Gate in SF!)

A monastery that was destroyed in 1755 in the earthquake

A house with cool tilework!

The Tower of Belem

and has several museums free on certain days, so we hit up several of those, including a modern art museum, a coach museum with horse-drawn carriages from years gone by, a national guard museum complete with armed bicycles, and a maritime museum with hundreds of miniature models of Portuguese explorers' vessels.  There was also a big monument to Portuguese explorers, with Vasco de Gama on the prow.

Another excursion we took was to the National Aquarium, which was really well laid out and had loads of cool aquatic animals.  My favorites were the rays, both giant and manta.  The train station by the aquarium also reminded us slightly of the starship Enterprise - do you see it?

Train station

Random artwork near the aquarium

The Tower of Vasco da Gama near the aquarium

The last day of the conference, meetings ended at 2 pm, and since there were no planes leaving back to Beijing until the next day, I had more exploring time.  I went up to the Castele Sao Jorge, or Castle of Saint George, which offers commanding views over Lisbon and the surrounding river/ocean, as well as a lovely walk through Alfama to get there and a guitarist playing traditional melodies in a courtyard.  Overall I really enjoyed my time in Lisbon and it makes me want to return to see the rest of Portugal!

View of the fort from the other side of town

The Se Cathedral, near our apartment

A church I could see from the castle