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| Padrão dos Descobrimentos |
The next morning, we took the metro down to Cais do Sodre and
transferred to the overland train to visit Belém. Situated about 6km to the
west of Lisbon, Belém watches over the mouth of the
Tagus as it meets the Atlantic Ocean.
From the Belém station, you exit and follow the coastline or the
highway in the direction the train was going – the Torre is still a bit of a
walk from the station. If you follow the coast, you will get some good views of
the 25 de Abril bridge – named (or re-named) to commemorate the revolution in
1974 – as well as the Cristo Rei statute. The latter is a copy of the infamous
Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, and was installed on the opposite side
of the Tagus to Lisbon city centre, thanking God for sparing Portugal from
World War 2.
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| 25 de Abril bridge, and Cristo Rei in the background. |
As you follow along the coast, you will first reach the Padrão dos
Descobrimentos, which was originally built in 1940 as a temporary statue to
commemorate 500 years since the death of Henry the Navigator. In 1960, it was
rebuilt slightly larger as a permanent installation. It celebrates the golden
era in Portuguese exploration, when they sailed to all corners of the globe in
search of trade and new ports. The figures along both sides of the tower are
superbly detailed, showing great carving skill. You can take a visit to the top
of the tower if you wish for a couple of Euro, taking in a nice view over the
river mouth and back to Lisbon.
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| Padrão dos Descobrimentos |
Another 15 minutes or so along the coast and you will arrive at
the Torre Belém. The Torre Belém was built here as a watchtower for potential
attacks, so as to forewarn Lisbon. It’s an impressive, but rather small tower,
sitting in the shallows. We decided not to go up, but admired the construction
from the shoreline.
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| Torre Belém |
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| Torre Belém |
Before crossing over the highway to visit the other side of Belém,
we stopped at the Weeel yogurt truck for a refreshment. We’d seen a few of
these around Lisbon, so thought it was worth a go. The yogurt was tasty enough,
but the only topping worth talking about was the forest fruits jam – everything
else was a bit average.
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| Getting stuck into so Weeel yoghurt. |
Over the bridge, we walked up the main street and took a flying
visit past the Jeronimos Monastery, and the associated museum. A former
monastery for the Order of Saint Jerome (hence the name), the building is quite
impressive to behold.
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| Across the N6 to the otherside of Belém. |
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| Some pretty cool urban artwork. |
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| Jeronimos Monastery |
Just over the next road from the monastery sits the wildly famous
Pastéis de Belém. I didn’t know quite how popular it was; I’d just seen it pop
up as point of interest on Google Maps and read about it being traditional food
of the region. On arrival, we got a proper taste for the popularity.
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| Pastéis de Belém draws quite the crowd. |
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| This is the main seating room, but there's many others! |
Seating only (!) 400 people, the various dining areas fill up
fast. The main dining hall out the back had a short queue of people waiting to
be seated. We joined, and it moved along reasonably quickly, so before long, we
had a table. Not going overboard, we ordered a coffee and 2 of the famous
pastries each. Avy had tried this style before in Taiwan – there was a brief
explosion of popularity for Portuguese egg tarts there, all shops for which
failed shortly thereafter. I’d never sampled them before. With a crispy, puff
pastry base (I’d expected it to be more biscuit/cake-like in quality) and a
smooth and creamy custard filling, the tart melts away deliciously in your
mouth. I wouldn’t say they are “to die for”, but they are very enjoyable. In
any case, you can buy these pastries basically everywhere in Lisbon, so you
don’t specifically have to come to Belém for them – these guys just invented
them, that’s the drawcard!
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| Pastéis de Belém and a couple of coffees. |
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| Om nom nom nom! |
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| Pastéis de Belém in the kitchen. |
We wandered back to the train station and headed back to Lisbon.
Just outside the Cais do Sodre station sits the Time Out Market. When we
visited, the second side, which appears to be a local fresh produce market, was
unfortunately closed. However, we explored the rest of it, which is mostly just
a food court hall. There’s a lot of nice sounding food on display, but a lot of
it is probably a bit overpriced, to be honest. It’s not entirely fair to say
that, as we didn’t eat anything (still full of Pastéis!). Nevertheless, the
place was bursting with atmosphere and is worth a look when you’re in the area.
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| Time Out Market, Lisbon. |
We had previously made plans to return to a restaurant we passed
the previous day. For only €9, we each got a stonegrill beef steak, with chips
and salad on the side. I’m often concerned with stonegrill, as I’m not the best
steak chef! But with the right cut of meat, you can’t really stuff it up. This
turned out to be one of the best meals we’d had on our trip, all washed down
with equally delicious Sangria Tinto (note that the Tinto is better than the
Branco!).
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| Sangria Tinto. |
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| All ready to stone grill our steaks. |
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