Day 4 Flea Market and Port Wine

Today is Tuesday our fourth day and it is Flea Market Day. We are going to get up early and hit the Flea Market at Campo Santa Clara in Lisbon. By now Doreen and I are looking and acting like locals.........Okay we stand out like our faces say TOURISTA!!!!!! all over it. At least I haven't gone into a ladies room yet. Are alarm is set to 6 AM but the beds are rock hard and even though we get some sleep it isn't a straight through sleep so we hit the snooze........OOPS it is now 8 AM and again we don't get to Breakfast until 9 AM. Again we screw up the maid's schedule. So we don't get to the train station until 10:30AM. But we catch the express train to Lisbon and the normal 40 minute train ride is down to 20 minutes. We get to Lisbon and head out on our short cut we found to get to the Prima de Comercio where we will pick up our tour bus. Today's tour is the Olispo which goes around the entire city. It is hop on hop off. Our driver tells us to go upstairs but we tell him we are getting off at Santa Clara for the Market. "No No we no stop there today. Market". He sees we are dissapointed and says "no worry, stop 4 get off and get on #12 bus. It take you to Market and get on to come back to Stop 4 and I pick you up." So at stop 4 we get off and he says "Hurry there your bus!" We make a Frogger attempt to cross the multi Lane intersection only to find out the driver is on his break. The bus is packed but we squeeze to the rear where everyone seemed to avoid. Hey more room for us. The bus finally takes off and heads up this steep and small hill. This street is two way. It has been scary on these buses. So we get to the flea market and start walking around. Doreen spies four bone china cups and saucers. Small tea cup size. I ask how much and three people have to come over to explain but three people have to come over and explain 10 Euros for each set. We say no for now and the vendor starts explaining the age and a bunch of other stuff but her blanket is our first stop. We head on through the crowd and then I show Doreen it goes down another block, up another hill around a building. There must be 150 or more vendors. If you have ever been to Berlin Auction it is like that but limited tables. Doreen sees a little doll for 1 Euro and I pay the vendor. Further up the hill she spies a Mattel Boy doll, I pay the vendor 2 Euros. A Euro looks like funny money but I tell myself and Doreen, 2 Euros is $3.16. We trudge on and all I know is I am getting my exercise. I feel like a mountain goat. We stop by the first blanket and ask the vendor if she will take 30 Euros for the four Tea cups and saucers. As she holds this ancient dieing dog (it smelled like it was dieing) and called the person who the cups belong to. No connection so she says 40 Euro. Doreen doesn't want to break up the set so I fork over 40 Euros. We now have four Bone China (or almost oyster shell like china) tea cups and saucers that are supposed to be 80 years or more old. We now head to the bus stop to catch the #12 to get back to stop 4. We wait about 15 minutes and just watch the crowd and the cars whizing by up and down that small street. The #12 arrives we get on and get back to our tour stop. Right on Schedule our driver shows up. He isn't our personal driver just that we timed it right to catch him on the loop. He asks happily, "You like market?" We answer yes and I tell him what a hill to climb. He smiles and asks where to. I tell him stop 17 for the Port wine Institute. This time we climb the stairs to the second tier of the bus and relax and enjoy the ride and scenary. We almost see our first accident when this small (very small) car jerks forward into the line of the bus. The driver beeps and swerves and the little car stops just short of getting squashed like a bug. No side air bags would have saved that driver. Later we hit congestion and our driver stops about 1 inch from the back of this panel truck. I know it was one inch since I was in the front seat and I could read the serial number on the door hinge.

Stop 16 arrives and we head down the steps to get ready at stop 17. Our driver asks again we are headed and we say the Port wine Institute. He stops the bus and says "Here you are. Stop 17 20 meters back. Take the finuclar to the square below for good sights. Come back here to get back on." We thank him and get off. We head to the Institute We enter and are told sit anywhere in our Rick Steves book he says that table service is slow so go to the bar to get you order. We look over the menu and select an appetizer and a port wine from Forsanca winery which we visited. I go to the bar to place my order and the bartender nods and says he will bring it. Shortly later he brings the two glasses and the bottle to show us the age. The port wine cost 1.5 Euros a glass and the appetizer costs 7 Euros. We then try a second glass this time of a 20 year old Port. They cost 3.60 Euros each. We finish our tasting cycle with a White Port Sweet from Wimmer Otimo. This one is 1.60 Euros and is the sweetest port they carry. We force ourselves up because after three port wines (19% to 22% alcohol) you get a good buzz. We pay up, buy a bottle and a gift and head out to the finiculer.

The finiculer is a verticle trolley that takes you from the high point of the hill down to the square. Just look at these next photos. The ride is cool and scary. I have no idea how this thing doesn't just shoot down the hill. We get down the hill and to the court and we find ourselves in a large shopping area sort of like times square but more open. We start looking for a place to eat. Across the square we spy a Hard Rock Cafe We make that our last choice if we can't decide. We walk the entire square, about a half mile around (my feet tell me that) and end up at the Hard rock. While walking we saw this that made us think of home then we saw this these are everywhere. Then as we turn toward the Hard rock we look down a street and see this There are two cops in that thing. But we get to the Hard Rock and have an American meal. We head back to the Finicular and I buy some roasted Chestnuts. There are vendors everywhere, so many that the air is always filled with the smell of roasting chestnuts. We get back to stop 17 only to be left stranded by our tour company. We wait an hour and no bus so we take the #790 which takes us to the train station. As we get there we have 5 minutes to grab a seat and we are off to Cascais and home. What a day. Tomorrow we are going to Sintra, I wonder what tomorrow will bring.