Lisbon part 2

After wandering around a little bit on day one, we were trying to stay out a little longer before going and checking into our hotel.  I know from past experiences that the temptation is too great to go check into a hotel and take a nap and then sleep your whole first day away.   Kathy suggested going to find this place that she had read about.  It was a church that was ruined in the earthquake of 1755, which we knew nothing about when we got to Lisbon, but learned a lot about during our stay.  The earthquake happened on All Saints Day when most of the population was in church.  It caused many of the churches and buildings to collapse.  After the earthquake, there was a tsunami and later fires broke out in the city.  Much of the city was destroyed, and obviously lots of people were also killed.

Here are the remains of the Convent of our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Inside the museum attached to the convent.

A mummy of a child.  

Day two, we took the train to a part of town called Belem (I'll get to that later).  When we got back to the Alfama district (the old part of town), we tried to find the Saint George Castle, which is above the city on a big hill.   

Several years ago, one of the Bachelorettes went to this castle on a date, which was when I first decided I wanted to go to Portugal.  

We literally wandered around for hours, trying to follow the directions on our phone's GPS, which could not figure out the winding streets any better than we could.  It seems like it would be easy to find because you just see it on the hill and walk there, but it wasn't.  We saw a couple of other tourists doing the same thing.  Sometimes GPS will take you to the closest entrance, which might be a driveway in the back of a building and then you have to start over.  When we stumbled across this homemade sign, we knew lots of tourists over the years must have been lost, too.

Even though we were lost and getting frustrated, the neighborhood where we were walking was so beautiful, it turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the trip.

On the outside of one of the buildings, someone had hung photographs of some of the local people.  

Here is inside the castle.  

We read about a traditional drink made from sour cherries that is served in these little chocolate cups.  We found a little stand right outside the castle and tried it.  It was one of my favorite things I had during my trip.  

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