Lisbon's Finest: From Amazing Wildlife at the Oceanario de Lisboa to the Incredible Edible Wildlife at Cervejaria Ramiro

What an amazing final day in Lisbon. We started the morning off at the Lisbon Oceanarium, the largest aquarium in Europe. We never miss an opportunity to go to an aquarium, and the Oceanarium was stunning. It included a floor to ceiling 360 degree tank filled with hundreds of fish, penguins, 3 unbearably adorable sea otters, and an endless array of gorgeous marine life. We spent 2 hours here and really we could've spent all day. Do not miss this magical place.

We had a disappointing lunch at one of Lisbon's hippest, trendiest restaurants: Cantinho do Avillez. Owned by Portuguese celebrity chef Jose Avillez, Cantinho do Avillez is upscale, with fussy and fancy food that is way too overpriced. My main dish came with 3 scallops, 1 cut up asparagus, 5 thin disks of sweet potato and 6 cherry tomatoes and cost more than any other single dish we have had the entire time we were in Portugal. Matt's duck confit - sausage rolls wrapped in cabbage was good, but heavy and inappropriate for a late summer/early fall dish. The place was just trying too hard and it failed again and again. Our meals at Cervejaria da Esquina and Enoteca de Belém were much better for much better value. 

Dinner, on the other hand, was one of the single greatest dining experiences of our lives. No joke. Cervejaria Ramiro is no secret -- if you do even a superficial search of best restaurants in Lisbon, it is sure to come up. Anthony Bourdain went there on the Lisbon episode of No Reservations (he actually was taken there by Chef Jose Avillez of Cantinho do Avillez). It is beloved by locals and tourists alike and for very good reason. This is a big, crazy, loud restaurant, with waiters constantly running by carrying everything from small glasses of beer to enormous live spider crabs. Tables are communal and you will likely be sitting next to another couple using mallets to crack open long crab legs. This place is all about shellfish, as simple and fresh as it gets. We had shrimp in a butter sauce, clams in garlic and cilantro broth, 6 glorious hefty langoustines and a grilled tiger shrimp which was roughly the size of a small lobster. Everything about the experience, from the atmosphere to the food, was absolutely unforgettable.  

But wait, there's more....

For dessert, yes dessert, you don't get ice cream, you don't get chocolate cake--you get....a steak sandwich! Yes, all around you you will see your dining companions ordering a Prego, and I highly recommend you follow their lead. Thinly sliced steak, quickly seared, topped with large pieces of garlic and yellow mustard and served on a soft portuguese roll. We ate every last crumb and loved every last bite.  

Of course, we left a little room for one last stop at Santini for an ice cream cone.... No matter how much you eat for dinner, there's always room for ice cream when you are on vacation!

Praia da Comporta: One of Portugal's Best Beaches

Portugal is famous for having some of the best beaches in Europe, and our main activity of the day was to seek out a beach that Travel and Leisure recently named one of twelve of Europe's best secret beaches. We drove about an hour and fifteen minutes South of Lisbon to check out Praia da Comporta. And this beach was INCREDIBLE. An enormous, virtually untouched beach of beautiful sand, stretching for miles in either direction. The Atlantic Ocean was calm as a lake and Caribbean-blue. There is a lovely beachside restaurant where we enjoyed picture perfect cockles in a lemon butter sauce and fried squid. We had seen a couple of beaches in Portugal so far, but they were nothing compared to this gem. Really one of the best beaches we've ever been to -- and that's saying a lot! 

We returned to Lisbon in the late afternoon and headed out for a happy hour cocktail to another hidden gem -- the rooftop bar on the 7th floor of the Hotel do Chiado. Stunning views of the city of Lisbon and a perfect place to sip a cocktail as the sun is setting, and the light on the Lisbon rooftops is particularly beautiful. 

Near the hotel was a restaurant at the top of my list -- Cantillho Do Avillez, a trendy "foodie" restaurant run by famous local chef Jose Avillez. Unfortunately we did not have a reservation and we were turned away (we will be returning tomorrow for our final lunch in Portugal), but luckily for us the same chef had recently opened a pizza restaurant only a few doors down. Pizzaria Lisboa served up some excellent pies, with very fresh quality ingredients. If you like meat, I highly recommend going with Matt's selection of the pizza with smoky chorizo, peppers and onion. 

I think i should note that after dinner we returned to Santini for some more ice cream. And well, I guess I'll confess that we have been back there every day since the first time we first discovered that magical, magical place.  

Exploring Lisbon: Tram Rides, Hill Climbs, Museum Visits and Some Great Ice Cream

It was a jam packed day in Lisbon, starting off with a fabulous joy ride on Tram No. 28, which takes you through many of Lisbon's diverse neighborhoods. Trams are all over the city, and though they seem like they would just be a tourist attraction, they are actually one of the primary forms of public transportation along with buses and metros. The trams are old, rickety, full of character and awesome. Highly recommend taking a ride. 

Here is an audio recording of our ride on the tram. It's a binaural recording, so if you listen to it in headphones it will sound as if you are actually there! 

We explored many areas of Lisbon, including the Alfama which was described in our so far totally unreliable guidebooks (both Rough Guide and Lonely Planet) as a wonderful place to just get lost among the enchanting winding alleyways. We did get lost -- or more accurately trapped -- in the Alfama, desperately trying to get out of the largely dark, run down, smelly and dirty narrow streets. Maybe we just missed the more appealing parts of this neighborhood. When we finally escaped and were able to breathe again, we came upon a huge plaza, the Praca do Comercio, right on the water, with a gigantic and very attractive arch (Rua Augusta Arch). The big open space and clean air was a very welcome change from the Alfama, and we strolled this area for a while until we decided it was time for lunch. 

Seeking out the best places to eat in a new city often takes you to neighborhoods not ordinarily on the tourist map. In this case we were lured to Campo De Ourique, a largely residential, easy going area where we arrived at Cervejaria da Esquina right when it opened at 1:00 p.m.

This was an excellent restaurant, laid back but definitely upscale, a "foodie" type of place with simple but expertly handled ingredients and an interesting and sometimes adventerous menu. My crab salad, packed with roe and a mayonnaise based dressing was as crab-y and roe-y as it gets, and I loved every bite. And Matt's excellent shrimp bisque, followed by a stunning and simple seared tuna sandwich with coarse sea salt and dijon mustard was pretty much perfect. 

Lisbon is an insanely hilly city and walking around is not easy, especially when it is 90 degrees outside. But for some reason (perhaps the great meal had gone to our heads) we made the decision to walk from the restaurant to the Gulbenkian Museum. The walk took forever, or at least it seemed like it did since half the time we were huffing and puffing our way up some seriously steep climbs. But we made it at last to this small but surprisingly amazing museum (which is free on Sundays) and thoroughly enjoyed the collection of art from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Asia.

For dinner we checked out the Barrio Alto, a neighborhood up on one of Lisbon's many hills, with lots of bars and touristy restaurants. The restaurant I had wanted to go to was closed, on holiday from August through sometime in September (grrrr). We ended up at a nice cafe overlooking the water for a simple, Indian-Portuguese dinner. (Noo Bai Cafe). The views were fantastic.

After dinner I had a hankering for some ice cream, as I so often do on hot summer nights, and a quick Google search of "best ice cream in Lisbon" led us to Santini ice cream shop in the Chiado neighborhood. And let me tell you, this was a wonderful, happy place with some DAMN GOOD gelato. I highly, highly recommend going here if you are an ice cream lover. Some of the best I've had, anywhere.