JERÓNIMOS Monastery

Today was quite a challenge, as I negotiated the Lisbon public transport system. I’m staying about 5 minutes walk from the metro station Baixa-Chiado, where I bought a 24 hour ticket. The metro is really deep: down 4 escalators:

Then I had to take a yellow tram towards Belém and Jeronimos. There was an enormous queue to get in and everyone was booking online, which I found quite difficult because the sun had darkened my glasses. Two German girls behind me came to my rescue and I gave them my phone and let them get on with it. (Of course, they were impressed by my German!) The following pics are of the monastery, mainly the cloisters. It turned out that the interior of the Church was closed for renovations, but we still had to pay the full price.

The carvings were all pretty impressive. It’s a Unesco world heritage site. Inside the Church is the tomb of Vasco da Gama, so no chance to see it on this trip.

It was lunchtime so I went down the street to the place where the famous Pasteis de Nata were first made and are still produced in quantity:

I ordered a duck and spinach pie, as I’d had loads of Portuguese custard tarts every day already.

I learned that egg whites were used in the monastery to starch the white vestments, so they started making the custard tarts in order to use up the yolks.