On Sunday we hopped on a bus to nearby Belem. Our intention was to tour the famous Jerónimos Monastery (as well as the Discoveries monument and Belem Tower). A strike foiled our attempt to visit the monastery in 2010, so we figured now would be a good time to try again.
We got a later start than we had intended, so we arrived to Belem to throngs of people, with the line to buy tickets snaking around the corner. We should have known . . . It’s August. On a weekend. In the heat. Peak tourist season. And yet we somehow lost sight of all of this and went anyways.
At first, we were going to stay the course. I mean, we’d come this far so why not wait? We got into the Monastery ticket line. We lasted only five minutes before we left the line!
In some ways it felt like a flop to give up when we had made such an effort to get to Belem and were (relatively) so close to executing our original plan. On the other hand, it also felt like we were forcing it too much; we could anticipate how crappy the day would be if we slogged forward in the high heat and massive crowds, to the backdrop of a (potentially blah blah blah) museum. For sure the monastery would have been beautiful, but on that particular morning, in that particular moment, we knew what we wanted to do. And we were thankfully on the same page . . . better to pivot, abort our original plans, and salvage the day :) I’m actually really proud of us for making that call.
Monastery ticket line behind us, we leisurely made our way through the Praça do Império Gardens and ended up at the Discoveries monument. This sail-shaped monument clocks in at over 170 feet high and celebrates Portuguese explorers, most notably Henry the Navigator. We sat down to take it all in and map out our Plan B. We opted to head back towards Lisbon via the bus, hop off for lunch and go from there.
There are times & places where we research restaurant picks in advance. Today was not one of them. In the heat of the moment we rely on Google Maps and Google reviews to help steer us in the right direction. Most of the time it works out. Today’s lunch at A Merendeira hit the mark! We opted for a no-frills place that had awesome reviews. It specialized in traditional Portuguese bread with slices of chorizo inside, baked in clay ovens. That bread, along with traditional caldo verde soup (shredded kale), hit the spot and was like a reset button for the day!
From there we continued on to the nearby Museu da Marioneta (Puppet Museum). Full disclosure: I love puppets, marionettes especially. I made a point of taking the girls to every marionette show at Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre in Central Park during our NYC days. It was as much for them as it was for me :) I dragged Doug to this museum in 2010, and he was a great sport about repeating this year. The girls were totally into it, helped by a kids scavenger hunt activity they had. Thanks to the fam for obliging my puppet curiosities :)
We wrapped up the beautiful day by plopping ourselves down at a little cafe in a small side plaza. We got two rounds of coffee, wrote postcards, played with plus-plus building toys and just enjoyed watching Lisboetas pass by on a sleep Sunday afternoon.
All in all, it turned out to be a great day, attributed to our joint ability to be flexible and be OK with changing up our plans in the moment, even when it’s not the obvious choice. Our Belem snafu was also a nice reminder to do a bit more legwork the night before and/or get out earlier in the morning when we hit up big tourist attractions. Noted!
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