You may have wondered whether we have been in Paris for over a month. Uh, nope, we have been enjoyng some new places, although we will always have Paris. From mid-April to mid-May, we were in Portugal, mostly in Lisbon and also in its little neighboring beach-side town, Estoril.

We haven't added Journey entries, although the Daily Snapshots and the On the Path readings continue every day... We always are wondering whether to blog about where we have been, plan where we are going, or just be where we are. So we have been being where we are. :)

We spent a very restful and relaxing month on the third European (fourth American) floor in Lisbon at the light blue apartment shown here (we had the apartment that looks to the river):

with the incredible view of the Tagus and its ever-changing maritime characters, like this sweet green spinnaker:

This sweet place belongs to Cesar, who also makes puppets!

We took a great day-long walk in the Alfama (ancient) section of Lisbon with Isabelle, who books Cesar's apartment and was our hostess. She even opened her home to let us use the internet in her private kitchen. Here is Isabelle with her daughter, Lisa, and Rowan. Thanks so much for your incredible hospitality, Isabelle! We all love our Macs!

On our tour with Isabelle, we saw the symbol of Lisbon everywhere. See the two birds?

and saw the great old palace with the king who protected himself with a big giant yellow palace in the great big square.

Lisbon is known worldwide for its beautiful tile work, which is everywhere. Here is a very interesting piece we saw on our tour with Isabelle in the Baixa-Chiado section of Lisbon. This tile work is inside the restaurant Cervejaria Trinidade, which used to be a convent for nuns:

And everywhere, Lisbon is a mixture of old and new. Here, we bought a 48-hour pass on the Hop On-Hop Off bus, which made for nice tours of different parts of Lisbon on very rainy days. Here you can see two contrasting buildings in the business district, which we saw from the front seat of the top story of the bus, through its rainy windshield. :)

And here is one of the other types of vehicles, beautifully restored, that tours the Alfama, and is also part of Lisbon's Hop On, Hop Off bus system:

And now, two more examples of Lisbon's beautiful street art, seen in the theater district:

They have absolutely beautiful graffiti! It was a beautiful, soulful, artistic month in a sweet, inexpensive, and friendly city, as shown in the following link from the American national newspaper USA Today, which appeared on May 10, our last full day there! Portugal: Beautiful, soulful, affordable