Offbeat Eats

After we finished exploring Coimbra for 3 days, it was time to head back to Lisbon for the last several days of our vacation. After a relatively quick and pleasant train ride on the Alfa Pendular train, we arrived at Lisbon’s Santa Apolónia railway station (Lisbon’s oldest), checking into the quite posh Editory Riverside, which is actually built from the old in-station hotel. Checking in, the friendly clerk at the front desk offered up quite a few recommendations for dining in Lisbon, and particularly, a recommendation for breakfast: going into the Baixa district and having a proper Pastel de Nata at Manteigaria.

Our main vacation this year was a two-week trip to Portugal, centering on a hike from Povoa de Varzim to Caminha along the Caminho Português da Costa. While our previous trip to Portugal was staged through Porto, between cheaper fares and sitting on a giant American Airlines credit from some weather-related delays back in March, we ended up booking through Lisbon and then taking the train over to Porto the next day to rendezvous with my brother and sister-in-law. This gave us a nice day of air travel recovery while exploring some of the lesser-traveled parts of Lisbon, including the excellent aquarium. Lisbon is a very popular and crowded tourist destination these days, so when it came time for dinner, I decided this would be a good opportunity to eschew the more popular parts of Lisbon (Alfama, Baixa, and Chiado), so I found a nice little family restaurant in the Lapa district west of downtown, Restaurante Raizes.