oh, so THIS is where to go….

Bill and I were determined to have a plan today, since yesterday we didn’t really have one and things didn’t seem to go too well. We had breakfast delivered to our room and while we ate decided the best idea would be to go to the Coach Museum which got big thumbs up for kids and then to a palace I’d read was still decorated in its original grandeur. They are pretty close together and it seemed like a good start. Two places that are close together should be do-able for Kaitlyn.

Today we knew where to go to switch trolleys to get to the museum. (It’s down the street from the bakery with those yummy custard thingies.) I’d told Kaitlyn she’d get to see coaches that princesses used to ride in… like the one Cinderella’s fairy godmother made out of a pumpkin. Our welcome to the museum was getting ripped off by the ticket seller. I gave him a 20, he said I gave him a 10, but I couldn’t prove it. It stunk. He must be a former cab driver. The museum had some very fancy coaches. The fanciest were made for the Pope to use when he’d come to visit Portugal. Kaitlyn’s interest waned after the second coach. Then she and I dashed around and I did my best to find things to keep her interested. Finally I gave up and found Bill. Then he tried to keep her entertained while I went back and read a little more about the coaches I’d rushed past. Good thing the museum isn’t very big; it’s inside an old royal stable. When I found Bill and Kaitlyn she was sporting a new princess key chain.

It was around noon when we finished there and I suggested we eat then go to the palace. There were a couple of cafes just outside the museum, but Bill thought we’d be better off walking to the palace and getting food somewhere around there. It looked close enough on the map, but of course maps don’t show you that you’ll be walking uphill. We paused under a bus shelter to avoid another massive downpour and when it stopped, we trudged ahead. We went past a few restaurants but none seemed to have any English on the menu and Portugese is not close enough to English or French for us to be able to decipher. We got to the palace in time to discover it closes for lunch. And to discover there’s no where near it to eat. We went to a trolley stop and stood there for about 20 minutes but no trolley ever came. So we walked back down to the little row of restaurants to see if another look would produce more promising results. It did not. So we stood at a bus stop that no bus came to. After about 20 minutes of that, I’d had it. We’d all had it. Kaitlyn was hungry and whiny. Bill and I were arguing about how the vacation could have been going better had I just planned more before leaving home. So I stepped into the street, hailed a cab, got in and said “Hard Rock Cafe.” Five Euros later (he charged us what the meter said) we were in the middle of where we’d probably wanted to be all along: tourist central. There were restaurants and shops and a big open square and lots of people and lots of English. And the hotel Rick Steves had recommended and I don’t remember why I didn’t book us there. We had to wait for a table at the Hard Rock, but we didn’t care. We felt much better just to be somewhere that we could understand what people were saying and where we knew a hamburger or mac and cheese or nachos or some other American dish was waiting.

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