Day 4: Graffito!

We had breakfast on the roof terrace of the hotel, this morning, and it was clear that although it was still cool up there, it was going to get hot later.

Indeed, by the time we'd walked down into the city - and I do mean down; the hotel is on a hillside - I was beginning to wonder whether I ought to have brought a hat with me.

We'd intended to take a tram tour, but the prospect of being crammed in a tram with twenty other people became less appealing the longer we queued and in the end we had a very enjoyable mooch along the waterfront instead (see Extra) before having lunch in a little place, 'Vincente', that Bob remembered and, miraculously, found by what he described as "muscle memory".

Then it was back out into the sun for the graffiti tour that Rich had booked us on. I must say upfront that our guide was excellent; chatty, well-informed, and enthusiastic. But as the 'hour long' tour passed the ninety minute mark in the relentless sun, we began to wish she was a just a little less keen to share her passion. However, some of the pieces we saw were amazing.

After that, we took a well-earned break back at the hotel before setting off in our search for some Fado music. I first came across this genre by the unlikely route of seeing Madonna live in London with the Minx a few years ago*. She talked about Fado and even performed some, if my memory serves me correctly. Bob is also a fan, so he asked our graffiti guide for recommendations, and these resulted in us ending up at a restaurant called 'Luso'.

And I'm glad we made the effort! The restaurant was beautiful - wonderfully low lit - the food was good, and the Fado, as far as I’m any judge, was excellent. And after that we made a gentle crawl back to the hotel via a couple more bars.

*Lockdown memory syndrome. Maybe it was early 2020? Maybe it was a couple of years before that.