I was going to try and write something deeply poetic that linked all my pics together in some oh-so-clever theme but my brain is well and truly fried… So, probably to everyone’s great relief, here’s a quick run through of ‘What I did on my afternoon off in Lisbon’.

So, to start with, I trundled down the Avenida da Liberdade to the Praca Dom Pedro IV…

square in Lisbon

…where I became obsessed with the wavy, snaking patterns of the cobblestones…

patterned cobbles, square in Lisbon

Then a tour bus conveniently rolled past and I jumped on, thinking that would be a great way to see as much of Lisbon as possible in an afternoon, only to find it took me back the way I’d just come – along the Avenida da Liberdade… Although the view from the top of the bus meant I could snap a better pic of some more cobblestones:

06_03_08_avenue_de_liberdade_cobbles.jpeg

There then followed a lot of blurry pics as the tourist spirit took over and I frantically tried to snap everything from the bus as it chugged up and down the hills of Lisbon (after five minutes of being there, you realise everything is on a hill). Although I managed to get a clear one of the Basilica at Estrela:

Basilica, Estrela

Eventually, we wound up near the Jeronimo Monastery in Belém:

Jeronimo Monastery, Lisbon

Now, I’d pretty much decided that I was going to hop off and have a look around anyway but then the tourguide seductively whispered something about ‘world famous custard pastries’ into my earphones and I was off that bus quicker than you can say ‘greedy little besom’. UNESCO world heritage sites, yeah – they’re alright. But custard pastries, well, they’re in an elevated category unto themselves :-)

OK, the bus stop just happened to be positioned oh-so-conveniently opposite the cavernous Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, but for once I didn’t mind walking straight into a tourist trap. Pastel de nata, I fell hard for your wobbly, warm, custardy charms… The flaky pastry side of things wasn’t bad either. And then they go and offer you a little shaker of cinnamon just in case, you know, you have a cinnamon fetish and feel the need to smother all your desserts in the good stuff. Ahem.

Could I get a decent picture? Could I heck…

pastel de nata, Lisbon

Oooh – this is turning into a loooooooong post. Think that’s why they invented Flickr. Must look into that. Part II tomorrow…