26 - 27 February: It's always about the weather

Yesterday, we took off our jerseys, in the street: T-shirt weather for the first time in 2025.

After our street-food treats at lunchtime yesterday, we opted for dinner from the supermarket: ham, cheese, salty-garlic olives, tree-fresh mandarins and a bottle of local red, (70% off), turned into spritzers with fizzy water… Perfect!

Our hotel is called “HF Music”. It leans in. Every time you enter or exit the lobby, motion sensors trigger flashlights, the sound of camera shutters. An awards-style background is set up on the curb for those Insta-moments. Every. Time. Our room has a sgraffito mural of musicians in ties, shades, looming over our beds. The lighting panel has modes, including one indicated by a love heart. It gives a meretricious red glow that is beyond tacky. Thankfully, they seem to change the linens every day.

Today was bitty. We walked to the top of Parque Eduardo VII which was “meh”. We strolled to the Cemetério dos Prazeres, which Google Translate tells me means “The Cemetery of Pleasures”. This is a fact I don’t know what to do with. Nevertheless, we love a good cemetery. It was orderly, tranquil and full of statuary and birdsong; walled off from the world; with a spectacular view of the living - the modern, unglamourous part of Lisbon, all traffic and warehouses.

If there is anything we enjoy more than a good cemetery, it is laundry. Today marked the first launderette visit of SuperTrip 2025. Our London apartment had a washer/drier, so we luxuriated in in-suite cleanliness. But, the time has come. Although we self-serve, the laundromat was staffed by a sociable older woman, who didn’t let our total lack of Portuguese come between her and a conversation. We laughed. We pantomimed. We washed our smalls... Unlike Paris, where the locals had neither washer nor drier, most customers were only there to dry, wheeling in clean, wet clothes to load into the frankly enormous tumblers. It’s this sort of nuance that makes the kind of traveling we do so insightful and fascinating. Our hostess (for that’s what she was), knew all the regulars. She held court while service-ironing like the pro she is.

Between the two, we found a lovely café just off the Campo de Ourique. We sat in the sun on the tiny largo (literally “the wide” - a non-square square where several roads meet). We had teeny, potent coffees and delicious, house-made sandwiches for lunch.

Today it rained, all day. There was a “moderate rain warning”, (apparently a thing in Portugal). Later, we passed park workers ferrying wheelbarrowfuls of rainwater from pools in the sidewalks. We sheltered in the Guilbenkian Museum, which is an exquisite private collection of works, created out of position and opportunity by one of the great players of the Great Game, who earned himself the nickname “Mr Five Percent”. It was fascinating on many different levels. Our ticket included the Temporary Exhibitions, mostly video installations by artists of Angolan Heritage speaking to the mainstream community.