We devoted one day to visiting the Zoo in Lisbon. It took us the whole day.
But the emotions, which we got during the visit, cost much more.
Each Zoo has got its own flavor, so the band of chimpanzees with its picturesque leader and his train should necessarily be looked at in Lisbon Zoo.
We were stunned, as we had nowhere seen such things before, by the pet cemetery on the Zoo territory with marble monuments and statues. But it is impossible to stay there for a long time being moved by the bowels of compassion.
We need to say a few words about parking near the Zoo. There were naturally no places at the existing municipal parking, and we made three rounds when we found an unstructured parking as far as 300 meters from the Zoo entrance. A pensioner was on duty at the driveway to this parking, who pointed us where to park the car. He took 5 euros for this service. When we came to take the car there was nobody. And only some time later we learnt, that Lisbon pensioners make business of some kind, namely, they occupy a parking place, get payment from people and are responsible for nothing. And what did we have to do? We were glad to receive such service at that moment.
The town of Azeitao with its unique climatic features is situated not far from Sesimbra, and it is a famous center of wine-making. We headed there (it is 10 kilometers from our hotel) with the purpose of visiting a wine factory. The factory for manufacturing muscatel wine lies in the center of the town.
Unfortunately we arrived there when it was a break, and the attending of the factory was impossible, but as we do not like sweet wines and liqueurs very much after we had a trial taste test we went to another plant which is a major producer of red dry wines and cheese and that is situated within less than one kilometer from the first one.
The plant is named Quinta da Bachlhoa . It is a huge area with old olive trees, sculptures with incomprehensible contents and even a rock garden from some Japanese sculptor. ( Why particular Japanese?)
We did not manage to get an excursion, but we visited a plant shop, where we bought excellent red dry wine of 2007 at 7 euros and cheese of the local production to it. It has to be said that we saw the same wine at a restaurant in Lisbon, and the price of it was already 42 euros! Later on we visited that shop several times and bought that wine, enjoying its rough taste.
The only town that we did not like in Portugal was Setubal. It is a port town, and we got an opinion from the experience of different countries visits, that there is no sense to attend port towns: they are more criminal, dirtier and vainer.
As it appeared it is better to look at the town from above, from the viewing platform of the fortress Castle Sant Filippe .
We stayed at this town only for one hour, just to have lunch and take a stroll around ragmen’s fair, and it is always interesting to see the things, which were in use of ordinary people 40-50 years ago in this country.
Aesthetic negative of Setubal was fully compensated on the back way by the most beautiful sights of Nature park Parque Natural Arrabida , located between Setubal and Sesimbra.
(Previous parts: Part 1 , Part 2,Part 3, Part 4, Part 5,Part 6)
