Woman in a pink dress with two trams

I'm loving Lisbon. It is a scruffy, often dirty, noisy, colourful city. The people are fantastic, so friendly. And everywhere you go you see things to make you think or just smile. 

The hills are exhausting and we needed to go to places at opposite ends of the main city today so ended up using a couple of taxis and a bus, all of which were very cheap. We did do a lot of walking before that, so the calf muscles still feel as though they have been tightened with a wrench and slapped with a rolling pin. 

We walked up to the Bairro Alto and found a wonderful piazza looking east over the city, with an outdoor bar where we sat in deckchairs, drank a beer and enjoyed the view and the people watching. Children and adults alike were enjoying the buddhist bubble blower in his orange robes, producing great volumes of soapy globes and there was a very accomplished Spanish guitarist lending a classy busker vibe.

The National Tile Museum sounds dull but it is spectacularly not. The building itself is classically Moorish with courtyards and fountains and trilling birds. The exhibits are spectacular and range from the very old and traditional scenes of bible and battles but much more of the decorative Ottoman, Spanish and Portuguese designs from the seventeenth century onwards. The Levantine and North African influence was more about geometric design whereas the European tended towards figures and animals. But there is also some stunning contemporary work, creating ceramic stories mixing traditional techniques with digital design. Fantastic place. Oh and they had two turtles in a pond.

Back in the city we had a beer in a very buzzy bar called Delirium and then a lovely walk across Santa Carina and Sao Bento to a fabulous little restaurant called Legumi Sushi Vegan. I loved this place. It was intimate and friendly and the food was fantastic with wonderful flavours and textures. The vegan shrimp (yes there is such a thing) was particularly lovely. I was stoked with beer, Sangria and red wine and enthusiastically got everyone including the Chef together for a group photo. They loved us back and offered us free puddings but we were just too full. 

We took a taxi home, tired but very happy. Wonderful day.