I´m sitting in an outdoor café in Baixa, in hillside neighbourhood overlooking the downtown area where I´m staying. I´m shivering slightly as it has cooled off with the sun set. There´s a restaurant around the corner where I want to go for dinner, but it doesnºt open until 8pm. Apparently Lisbon runs late! To kill some time, I took a walk down to the river and along back to the Praça do Comérçio, the main square at the port, which despite the name has little in the way of active commerce, although it does have a lot in the way of impressive old architecture and statuary. It also has a huge victory arch (although I´m not clear on what victory is celebrated) and a tourist office (with internet terminals, yay!).

This last sold me a two day Lisboa Pass, good for free access to the metro and buses, as well as free or discounted access to most museums and sights.

I also picked up a "What´s On" guide, which had a couple of things I might check out: the American band Weezer is playing tomorrow night, and the ballet is on Wednesday.

In short: so far, so good...
posted by Tom at 7:25 PM | link |