Day 2 - Sunday 30 August 2015
We woke up late as we had slept in to try and get rid of our jet lag. I had a really saw throat so it was a bit of a slow start. It was beautiful and sunny so I decided to do some tanning on our rooftop... Nude.
After my nude tanning session Jazz was starting to get hangry so we got dressed and went wandering. We found a little cafe that was open so went inside and ordered toasted sandwiches and orange juice. They came with a side of potato chips which we thought was weird but have since seen other places serving them like that too.
After we ate we went next door to the super market to buy a few supplies - butter, ham, yogurt, juice, wine, water & beer. Tiago had given us a basket when we arrived with wine, fruit, cheese & bread in it.
We wandered back to our apartment to drop everything off because let's face it we mostly bought liquid and it was really heavy.
We went exploring and found a few little shops along the way. We had our Segway tour at 4pm so really just wanted to kill a few hours before then.
We wandered down the hill and came across some pop up markets. They smelt like meat because there was all this meat hanging up and big lots of chorizo getting fried up. We bought some sangria snd sat at a table next to a couple in their 60's. Jazz asked the lady to take a photo of us and we stared chatting. They were Spanish, from Valencia, so when we told them that was were we were going shortly they started telling us lots of tips. They called over their son and his two kids to introduce us. The son lived in Chicago so spoke very good English. The kids had never met Australians before and were really cute. They couple then called over there daughter who was also holidaying with them. They were all lovely and we chatted for half an hour or so before they had to head off. By then it was almost 4pm so we made our way stopping at a few little shops to where our tour started from.
There were about 15 people on the tour from all over the world. The main guide was called Simon and he had two other guys helping him.
He gathered everyone around and said "who wants to go first?" From behind, Jazz pushed me so I stepped forward and Simon took that as me volunteering so he grabbed a Segway and I was the guinnea pig. I was a little bit shaky to start with but got the hang of it. It was pretty easy once you found your centre. We practiced in the squared for a little bit and they we were off following Simon down the streets. We mostly followed the tram line. We went through the old town and stopped along the way as he explained where we were.
It was amazing, such a great way to get around.
We covered so much ground in such a short amount of time and it wasn't tiring, so when we got to each spot we could jump off, take some photos and weren't exhausted. Everyone else on the tour had just paid for an hour but we had paid for two. So when we got back to the start, they all left and Jazz, Simon & I continued on. We had some red & green wine and some cod cakes which Simon told us was Portuguese fast food. We rode up the other side of the city this time and because there were only 3 of us we could go pretty fast. We stopped at the biggest library in the world, Simon said it is in the Guinness book of world records. We stopped in at this tiny bar and had cherry liquor. He said you have two shots each and then you eat the cup which is made of chocolate so we did.
We continued on and made our way back to where we started and said our goodbyes to Simon.
We were on such a high from the tour so we wandered down and went to the beer museum to grab something to eat & drink. The beer was nice but incredibly over priced.
We decided we were cold and wanted to go by jumpers so we wanted to wander up to the shopping district we rode through earlier with Simon. We were wandering up these steep cobble stone streets so quickly got warm & forgot about jumpers. We wandered past this cool looking bar (By the Wine - Jose Maria de Fonseca) so went in. They had green bottles all over the ceiling and the waiter suggested a delicious wine to try. After we finished that glass we set off again. We wandered past a bar with a band inside playing Fado music so went in and had a beer. After that we continued on again, we didn't really know where we were going but we were hungry again so decided to find a place for dinner. We walked past a gay bar, we new because there was a rainbow out the front. Jazz stuck her head in the window and asked the guys sitting in there if there were gay bars for girls around. This friendly guy Nuno came out and he had a map for gay friendly places. We talked to him for a little bit and he asked us our names and connected with us on Facebook. He said maybe one day he would come to Australia so would look us up.
We continued on and found somewhere for dinner.
It was a small place, crammed in with people. Judging by the accents, we were in between some English & some Americans.
I had a beautiful salmon steak and Jazz had an actual steak. There is a lot of seafood in Portugal so Jazz's options where a lot more limited than mine.
Two glasses of wine were more expensive then a bottle so we thought, what the hell! This was a mistake, a glass & a half in I started to feel a bit unwell. I wasn't drunk, I think I'd just had two much alcohol for one day. Also Jazz and I had decided to try some Portuguese cigars earlier, they were disgusting.
We wandered home, but enjoyed some time on the rooftop before we went to bed.