Oi from Lisbon – Belem Edition

lisbon belem 01 (1)Or the day I went to Belem and ate. A lot.

In my continuing story of my love affair / romance from afar with Lisbon, we get down to business, well, mostly food, but there’s some buildings too, I promise.

lisbon belem 01 (2)After a quick stop at the supermarket and miscommunication about the use of the public transport card we jumped on the train. Here is a little ‘As Seen In’ sneak peak from the supermarket, they sell bread  that comes without the crust. Lucky kids eh!

lisbon belem 01 (3)No, the train didn’t teleport us to San Francisco, this is the 25th April Bridge and everyone will keep telling you it’s not inspired by the Golden Gate Bridge at all. We believe you…

lisbon belem 01 (4) lisbon belem 01 (5)The first tower stop was the Padrão dos Descobrimentos or Monument to the Discoveries, a structure dedicated to the original (offline) travel bloggers from a few centuries back. We’re talking Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama and Felipa of Lancaster – really old school. For €3 you can climb to the top and enjoy the view, but it isn’t really necessary as the building itself is the wow factor, save your euros for pastries.

lisbon belem 01 (6)Another ‘As Seen In’ sneak peak. When you ask for a straw you get it like this, has anyone seen it anywhere else? And how can we get it in the rest of the world?

lisbon belem 01 (7)Next up was Belem Tower – exterior and interior are just wow and the place is a never-ending source of picture opportunities. We also walked past the Jerónimos Monastery, but didn’t go inside. It was advertised everywhere and on every thing to do in Lisbon list I read, so I hope the travel police won’t go after us.

lisbon belem 01 (8)A queue was our next stop. Not just any queue, but the queue at The Pastéis de Belém to acquire one of their famous custard pastries. Although the wait wasn’t too long, we sneaked past a tourgroup and took a seat inside and enjoyed a hot pastry and a drink.The best thing? They pastries only cost €1,05 per piece, mind blowing, as anywhere else this would have been triple the price.

lisbon belem 01 (9)This is a perfect example of up-cycling, this brochure stand is made from an old mattress.

lisbon belem 01 (1)Amsterdam has Foodhallen, London has Borough Market, New York has Chelsea Market and Lisbon has Mercado da Ribeira. One half of the market sells fruit, vegetables and meat the traditional way and the other had a make-over and is indoor food paradise nice atmosphere and a wide variety of cuisines.

lisbon belem 01 (2)We had burger at Honorato, and they was okayish,The burger and fries were top notch, it just wasn’t very exciting. we later learned it was a chain so you don’t have to go to the market to grab one.

Argh… given the fact it cost €4 – that is expensive for Portuguese standards, I was so convinced that I would be a writing a 5-star review for this cake. But it was wet and tasted funny. Alas, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.The passion-fruit cake you see in the background was streets ahead for my taste buds.

lisbon belem 01 (10)To make up for the weird taste I had to have some ice-cream to clean the palate. The folks at Gelato Davvero are Italian, so know what they are doing. Next to your vanilla, lemon and chocolat they also had parmesan, basil and avocado and the staff kindly let us try flavours before selecting which ones we wanted. Definitely would go for avocado again, not sure on parmesan.

lisbon belem 01 (11)The next morning it was time for my 7 a.m flight back to London. I hope to return to Lisbon again one day as two full days was too short – or maybe I wasted too much time eating.

What was the weirdest ice cream flavour you ever had?

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5 Comments

  1. That last shot is beautiful! I love how your photos capture the atmosphere of the city so perfectly. Makes me miss the place so much!

    Nat | Dignifiable

  2. Avocado ice cream – wow! I bet the basil is great too – I tried that in Sicily last summer and loved it, so refreshing. Though I would hold off on the parmesan! Would love to try the Pasteis de Belem in their birthplace 🙂 x

  3. Santini ice creams are supposed to be the best but I don’t know about those. And yes, Portugal’s attractions are 70% food based. The garlicky grilled swordfish and francesinha make me miss my country just for the sake of gluttony…