Café Majestic, looking like whatever the Portuguese version of art nouveau is, had a long line out front so we walked on by. Livraria Lello, said to be the the most beautiful bookshop in the the world cost 5.50 euros just to get, some sort of voucher to be fair, so we just looked in the door. In both Lisbon and Porto we found ourselves walking well out of the tourist areas where we found the most satisfaction. It was German Unification Day so a lot of Germans took extended weekends. And there nightmarishly large cruise ships just offshore in Lisbon. Porto is a lot more laid back and comfortable.
We found the coolest record shop, an “analógico” (analog) shop that appeared to be doing most of its business online. They could afford to have the most esoteric collection of art books, two on Buffalo’s Tony Conrad, artfully laid out in the small shop. Vinyl racks with Krautrock, Spiritual Jazz (Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry and Sun Ra) and ESG in the Disco section.
We must have stopped in five or so churches, everything from the over the top dusty Rococo church of Sao Francisco to an active parishes with parishioners in the pews. We found a articos religiosos store, Casa do Coracao de Jesus, and picked out twenty holy cards, four euros worth, all printed in Portugal. The shop owner gave Peggi a tiny silver statue of Santo Onofre, the patron saint of money. He instructed her to put it at the very bottom of her purse.