Monday 29th June: Butterflies and bus trip

Monday morning started as Sunday had, with rain showers. After the reception staff helped us confirm our airport taxi pick up for Tuesday morning, we headed out for the day. But this morning the Sao Sebastian metro station reopened and it was a quick dash into El Corte Ingles for the Guardian and a coffee while we waited for the shower to pass. Having a metro stop within the shop meant we did not have to get wetter and we headed off into town, getting off at Avenida metro and walking through the back streets to find the entracne to the Botanical Gardens.

A stroll round found us at the butterfly house where they were breeding Monarch and Cleopatra butterflies. They flew around us and settled long enough for me to take several pictures.



We then headed out of the gardens and off into the Bairro Alto until we came across the viewing point on Rua Dom Pedro V (Miradouro de Sao Pedro de Alcantara) at the head of the Elevador da Gloria funicular which we took down into the square.



Once down, Sonia bought herself a fan from a traditional hat shop before we went to the Swiss cafe for lunch. Sonia had burgers and a salad while I went for the Portuguese staple of boiled cod served with whole fired potatoes, which we topped off with port and coffee mousse/cake. From here we headed up to Largo Sao Domingos (the square by AGinginha) for a photo of the Jewish memorial and off through the grid of streets of Baixa to a Fair Trade shop where, surprisingly we didn't buy anything!



With our shopping heads on we caught the 28 tram to Largo by Baixa Chaido metro and Rua Garret and walked down the "The Wrong Shop", but it was closed with a "back soon" sign up. We headed round the corner to the cafe in the square for a glass or two of iced tea. Sitting at the table, we realised that we were at the entrance of the Elevador de Santa Justa. We rode the elevador down to the square and took an open top tourist bus trip round the city for 90 minutes.

This took us to several places that we had already visited but also to many parts of the city we had not had the time or energy to see.



When we got back, we headed back up the elevador to The Wrong Shop and I finally bought a souvenir tee shirt. Having done our tourist shopping, we got on the metro at Baixa-Chaido. Getting off at Sao Sebastian meant we were able to walk straight into the supermarket section at El Corte Ingles to each buy a bag of local sweets to take back to the folks back at work.

We made it back to the hotel about 6ish, and as the night before, we settled down in the bar for sandwiches, beers and cuba libres while watching England lose to Germany in an Under 21 game. We gave up at 9.15 with England 2-0 down as we had to be up early the next morning for our flight. The hotel staff assured us that breakfast would be available at 6.30 if we wanted it so we thanked them and headed off to pack.