- by Krista Cornish Scott
(While researching this post, I finally figured out why I kept seeing São for some saints and Santo for others, and many wrong examples of both! Santo is for saints that start with a vowel and São is for ones that start with a consonant. So I’ve been saying the festival name wrong, but no more!)
Saturday morning I kicked Granna, Kenna and Aedhan out the door to go walk down to the end of our street, Rua de Santa Justa, to get in line for the famous elevador, to go see the amazing view of the city. Any time we’d walked by there, there was a huge line, so I figured early on a Saturday after the start of the festival many tourists would be sleeping in. Aedhan was brave and went up to the very top, while Granna and Kenna stayed at the level where the elevador lets you off.
View from the bottom!
View from the top!
Ruined convent church that was never repaired after the earthquake.
Buddies!
On top of the world!
Looking down our street, Rua de Santa Justa
Rossio square, with St. Anthony statue and fountain we’ve had other pics beside.
King of the selfie. 😉
Then we checked out with Mr. Mario our kindly landlord with the questionable English skills (I really should have just spoken German with him I think he deals more with German tourists) and I tromped down to the Praca to get two taxi’s to follow me back to pick up the horde of luggage and people.
Our next apartment is about a ten minute walk from the first, but the cab ride costs almost as much as from the airport due to the twisty turny one-way streets and many traffic lights and much festival traffic. I have never cringed so much on a cab ride! It always seemed like we were inches from scraping something.
We got up to the Travessa dos Monicas and met the very sweet housekeeper who takes care of the rental for our VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) hostess, Catarina Garcia. Catarina grew up in this house, her bedroom is the one Kenna is sleeping in with a cute little bedroom set, and I’ve had many emails back and forth with her already she’s been extremely helpful and made excellent suggestions for tips on the area.
So we walk into the sweetest little inner courtyard garden and traipse up the stairs. Again, you never quite know what you’re getting when you book online especially a VRBO or airBnB so I was a bit nervous. Apartment looked great, small kitchen but spacious rooms, lovely big living roo…… OH MY SWEET LARD WILL YOU LOOK AT THAT VIEW!!!! I shrieked aloud! I hugged the landlady! I mean…… COME ON!!!
I MEAN COME ON!!!!!
SERIOUSLY!!!! I can’t even with this view.
So after I calmed down and stopped staring out the window, we decided to go explore our new neighborhood, called Graça. We are to the northwest of the Castle or Castelo district, and north of Alfama. We are a half a block away from a church and this amazing Miradouro named after a famous Portuguese poet, you can read about her here.
After a quick trip to the Thieves Market (I’ll post about that later, related to our second trip there) and a lovely dinner in the garden we headed out for some St. Anthony partying, our first of three nights in a row up here of party time!
Yes, it’s an amazing garden for dining al fresco BUT HAVE I MENTIONED THE VIEW????
This was the early crowd, when you could still walk and see pavement. Later on it was insane packed busy.
All I wanted in life was a Sardine hat but alas I didn’t get one.
I’ve never had a fresh grilled sardine before but it was amazing! And the sangria was pretty tasty also.
Ginja (cherry liquor) shots in chocolate cups! Yes please!
We really can’t believe our luck in this second apartment. Despite the billowing clouds of sardine smoke and the VERY LOUD revelers until 5 am Saturday night, the charm of this real slice of Portuguese neighbourhood life has been really unique and so different than our more sterile hotel-ish tourist life downtown. The ease of getting around downtown was really great, but the benefits of being up here are also pretty amazing, so, give and take.
This is the view a half block up from our apartment. There is a Miradouro and a little café we are making ourselves regulars at right away, and fun views of some neat graffiti, not just the city. 🙂
whyyesweare 