last Portugal post: graffiti and food

We're back home from our Lisbon trip, but it's too hot to do a proper home garden assessment right now. Maybe after I catch up on watering, I'll feel more like taking pictures. But not today. So here's the last of Lisbon.

 

In the apartment we made our own salads and ate them with tasty Portuguese sheep cheese and white wines.

really big bottle tree outside the modern art museum

Most of the traditional Portuguese restaurants automatically served these little tins of sardine pate and bread.

After eating out and tiring of cod and potatoes, we made black beans and guacamole and tomato rice.

grouper with mushroom cream sauce and potatoes at a restaurant in Belem

fried fish--forgot which kind--with tomato rice at the same Belem restaurant

blogger refused to post this guy right side up

garden bloggers' bloom day from Portugal

Day 15 here in Lisbon and we’ve done plenty of exploring. Not pictured here, but we’ve seen lots of oleander, gray santolina, bougainvillea (purple, pink, and orange-ish), and lantana (confetti, purple, and red-orange-yellow). Please visit Carol’s blog at May Dreams Gardens to see other blooms from all over the place! Sorry for not including botanical names but we have limited internet access, so I didn’t look them up.


huge variegated agave


green santolina


some variety of fuschia in the botanical garden (sorry I forgot to write down which kind)


familiar purple coneflower


cannas in another public garden


more agapanthus (They're all over Lisbon. Not complaining!)


unknown succulents at the huge cemetery


lively windowbox in Alfama neighborhood

Ubiquitous lantana, even here in Portugal

Greetings from lovely Lisbon—our first visit! We’re staying in a vacation apartment rental in the city center overlooking the busy Rossio square and have great views from three sets of double full-lite doors.



We’ve never done the international apartment rental thing before, but this one’s working out well, especially because we can sleep late and make our own breakfast in the kitchenette. Also, it’s nice to have the option of cooking here whenever, because there are two national holidays this week and one last week when many restaurants (and our corner supermercado) are closed.

Weather’s been sunny and warm but not really hot, plus there always seems to be a good breeze. Heavenly.


I'm a sucker for hydrangeas.


More lantana. That’s not a cloud above; there was a big fire somewhere in the Mouraria neighborhood today while we were exploring the Alfama neighborhood.


Huge wall of morning glories?


Love these purple mimosa trees, Jacaranda Mimosifolia, native to Argentina but adapted here, and found on many downtown streets.


Closeup of purple mimosa tree


Bougainvillea


Some relative of agapanthus? The graffiti refers to Portugal’s national champion soccer team, Benfica, some of whose members we think will be playing in the World Cup.

Big thanks to our stellar house-, garden-, and pet-sitter, Raphael, who happens to have a Portuguese grandmother who lives outside Lisbon.

We have a limited daily internet allotment at this apartment, so I may not get to comments promptly but will try. Salud!