Travel day. Coimbra to Lisbon. We hopped aboard the train on the car marked with a big 1°, meaning First class. Being seniors, it cost us a whopping 2€ each for the upgrade. How does one pass that up?
Right away we got involved in a bit of a human shell game where we both started out in the right seats, wrong car. And due to some other folks making similar errors, and a comedy of moves, I ended up in the right seat, right car while Grubb remained in the right seat, wrong car. Huh. Fascinating, no?
Seems really nice to be back in Lisbon. Like an old familiar friend. Not that we didn’t enjoy Porto or Coimbra or the Douro Valley or Braga. We certainly did! But there is so much we still want to do here. Like visit the garden with huge porcelain statues, take a peek at the doll hospital, a day trip to Cascais, a day trip to Sintra.
Tonight we found the alley with our favorite restaurant but saw there was a second restaurant with tables out so we gave that one a go. We both had grilled octopus, Polvo ã Lagareiro, And wow, so tender and scrumptious. I’ll spare you the photo. But I will show you my sangria cuz it’s pretty.
I asked Grubb if he could think of another country where octopus reigned supreme on the menus. We couldn’t think of any. Can you?
In Galicia, the northwesternmost autonomous region of Spain, the region just north of Portugal, pulpo (octopus) does rein supreme.
Interesting! We read that much of the octopus here comes from the Algarve area in southern Portugal. I wonder where the Spaniards get it.
What do they call octopus in Portugal??
Polvo is the Portuguese name. I was reminded that I listened to a podcast about octopi a couple of months ago (maybe Short Wave) about how smart these creatures are.
Interesting … “polvo” in Spanish means “dust”! In Galicia, which is surrounded by the Atlantic on both the north and west, i.e., hundreds of miles of coastline, they “fish” for the octopus there. In 2019 when we were walking along the northern coast we met a man coming up from the rocks with a pail. Here are photos and what we wrote: https://crowley.pw/cdn2019/2019/04/17/pulpo-octopi/ Yes, since then I’ve learned octopi are smart creatures. Made me glad I didn’t really enjoy eating it. But it sounds like you have found some in Portugal that you like. I wonder if it is prepared differently in Portugal?
So it seems like the octopi come pretty close to shore to be fished like that! Here, the most common preparation is grilled with olive oil and garlic. Done right, it is amazingly tender, not rubbery at all. There is also octopus salad which is chopped octopus, raw onions, carrots, cauliflower.Mixed with olive oil.
Well, once we are back home, our octopus days are over.