We visited the Gulbenkian Museum in the morning. They had a great modern show pairing Gorky and Portuguese artist Jorge Quieroz. Their historical collection ranged from prehistoric to 19th century.
Lunch and a visit to Benfica
At Olivia restaurant, we had shrimp curry, duck tacos, and tabouli with tuna. It was very tasty, but service was incredibly slow. We keep having this feeling of being ignored, which started with the photo tour in Italy. We joke about being old now. Is that why?
After a nap, we took the subway to Benfica, the Military College subway stop, which was close to the Colombo mall. The Celeiro there (sort of like their Whole Foods) had more fragrance-free products than we found previously, which was encouraging. We walked through Benfica, past the new hospital and into a residential area. It seemed rather run-down. There were few businesses or restaurants open on Saturday after 6pm. We ended at a big traffic circle called Portas de Benfica, which turned out to be an old customs station for entering the city, recently restored. I thought it looked like the buildings of an Indian amusement park.
To get home, Google gave us some bad directions, sending us onto a highway on-ramp. So we went back to the traffic circle. We used the bus app to find the right stop and got the 746 bus, which went directly back to our apartment.
We had dinner at Indian Thali on the street across from our apartment. The waiter was from Kerala, studying in Germany. He appreciated our appreciation of our Kerala dishes — fish curry and beef curry, Kerala style with coconut milk.