Lazy Day in Lagos

**Ours is the 2nd floor patio with butterflies on the wall**

Today was a perfect day – we slept in, sat chatting on the patio for hours over coffee and a light breakfast before finally forcing ourselves to get up, dressed and out the door for the day.

We agreed to stay local and headed over to Old Lagos on foot. New Lagos where our condo rental is located is separated from Old Lagos by Ribeira de Bensafrim (River) and the Marina. Our walk took 5 minutes and quickly we were back in time on steep, cobblestone streets with shops and restaurant everywhere.

Shortly after arriving in Old Lagos, we realized we were hungry. I know what you are thinking, “but they just ate on the patio”. I swear we ate hours ago – at least 5! We stopped at this place called, “Vaca Galo” which means Cow Rooster. We each had delicious burgers with “explicit” fries (homemade fries with cheese and bacon – naughty -:) and each person’s drink of choice. Don’t worry, we added some roughage (see the salad in the middle frame)!

After lunch we walked for 3 hours, checking out different streets, alleys and shops. The tourist season has not officially started so some streets were empty while others had people milling around or seated outside with a drink or some food. See, we are not the only ones eating!

Old Lagos is so quintessential Europe but Portugal is special, the Portugese love for art is highlighted everywhere. On building tiles, outdoor sculptures, graffiti murals on buildings and designs on cobblestones. Some of the graffiti was so breathtaking that I included several though not all of them. We plan to post all the art on a separate page so stay tuned …

Of course, there is no perfect day without gelato so we had to try some! Jesse researched the top Gelaterias and we ended up at GeIícia (Gelato Italiano). The dark chocolate was like rich frosting, the mango seemed fresh squeezed into the cup, and the coffee was Café Italia.. nice and strong.