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Lisbon with its ceramics in Portugal

We left Evora with its roman aqueduct houses by train (the ticket costs 10 euros) to go to Lisbon, it was our last place to discover as planned for our Portugal trip that we started at the beginning of this month of August in Oporto.

It took us about 1h30 for the train to reach the city. Once there, we went to our hotel Turim Alameda (avenida rovisco pais 34, 73 euros per night without breakfast) located near to the alameda metro station, this is a good point because we could take the green line to go to the downtown and the red line for the airport. The room is quite nice, the only point is that the air conditioning was not working very well.

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Like in Oporto, to use the metro, we bought a card called "viva viagem" for 0,50 euros then we had to charge it with the number of trips. The economic way is to charge it with the "zapping" option, the difference is that instead to select the number of trips, we selected how much money we wanted to spend.

For our last days of holiday, we walked a lot, we just took the metro to go to the downtown and to go back to our hotel. We visited most of districts around the downtown including it (Alfama, Bairro Alto, etc.), walking up then down to different panorama viewpoints: Saint Catherine (Santa Catarina), Our Lady of Mount (Nossa Senhora do Monte - the best one because we can see the castle, the 24 of April bridge with the river and the sunset), Sun Doors (Portas do Sol), Saint Lucy (Santa Luzia) and Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen.

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We walked to the cathedral, the Santa Justa elevator, the castle, the mesquita central, the eduardo 7 park, the estrela garden and more. The martim moniz square has been changed into a kind of summer cool place, only the sand was missing to make us feel that we were somewhere else, there were different cockail and eating places. It is also in this area we found the Chinese community with its big supermarket, shops and restaurants. We ate in Pho Pu (rua do benformoso 76), a small Chinese restaurant that offers only Vietnamese and Chinese soups, not really the original taste but very close and good (the only point is that the meat balls are not the good one).

While walking in the downtown, from time to time, some guys came near to us and said very very discretely marihuana and showing in the palm of his hand, a small bag to make sure that we understood what is his business. It seems something quite normal in the city, like a flower seller, the only difference is that he can't scream too loud.

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We took a half afternoon to see Belem, we took the train at the cais do sodre station direction to Cascais using the same metro ticket (the price is a little higher than a normal ticket) so we did recharge it. The train took about 10 minutes (just 3 stops) and it was a nice visit to see the Belem tower, the Monument to the Discoveries (Padrão do Descobrimentos) and the Jeronimos monastery.

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The curious thing to visit was the Carmo convent which was half destroyed due to an earthquake in 1755 so the place has no roof (to avoid during a raining day). There is also a museum section where we discovered some history in relation with the place and some not like mummies from Peru.

If you like ceramic plates/cups/vases/etc., you can go to Cerâmicas na Linha (rua capelo 16). We bought some stuffs there, the price is either per piece or per kilo, depending what you want. We were focused per kilo because the price is more interesting. The only thing, that we had to take care, was to look carefully that the plates don't have any imperfections and any scratches. We went also to another place called Maria Atarefada (rua padre francisco 10) but there are very few choices.

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Be careful about thief in the downtown, meanwhile walking quietly, from the baixa-chiado metro station to the luís de camões square, a group of 3 people (2 women and 1 guy) tried to steal us. They behaved like tourists with a map. 1 of the girl hold the map and the other hided her hands below to open my bag so no one couldn't see anything and the guy was here to control and to take the things quickly if something would go wrong. Hopefully, I felt something moving behind my back and when I turned my head, I saw them moving away, they opened entirely my backpack but have no time to take something, when my wife screamed "thieves", they left quickly the area.

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Apart this incident, we did enjoy our Portugal trip, starting on the north to go to the south, if you want to know where we went, read Portugal, a trip from north to south, Oporto to Lisbon by train. Our holiday came to its end and we had to flight back home and start again to work and to save money for our next adventure.

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