A shop full of sardines at Conserveira de Lisboa - in Lisbon

If you're new here and enjoy my blog, I'd love you to to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

We came upon the Conserveira de Lisboa purely by chance, on a rainy day in Lisbon when we were making our way up the hill to the Castelo de Sao Jorge. Seeing a brightly coloured window we took shelter under it’s blind for a while and then got drawn in to the shop out of curiosity to see what it was selling.

It seemed a little unlikely to find a shop that only sold cans of sardines, but if it was to be found anywhere in the world, it had to be in Lisbon where the smell of grilled sardines invites you in to many a cafe in summer, especially by the seaside. In fact we found that it wasn’t just sardines, but also anchovies, tuna and other kinds of tinned fish.

Now, I can’t say I’m a great sardine lover, but I must say that I was seduced by the slightly kitch, retro paper packaging around each tin and the way that they were stacked up invitingly on the shelves. In the corner was a lady, deftly wrapping all the tins up in their decorative paper. These people had certainly made sardines into an art form!

They’d obviously sussed out what random passers by like us might purchase and we soon had a couple of little taster packs of four different kinds of tinned fish in our bags - ready perhaps to make some fishy apperitifs. You can guess what some of our nearest and dearest got for their Christmas presents.

So if you’re passing that way, or if sardines on toast are your favourite meal, or if you’re looking for an unusual souvenir of Lisbon, then pop into this quirky little place and check out a shop full of sardines at the Conserveira de Lisboa.

Conserveira de Lisboa, Rua dos Bacalhoeiros 34, 1100 Lisboa, Portugal

This is posted as part of Wanderfood Wednesday - head over for chilli and buritos and other foodie delights

Other Lisbon food to enjoy

Having my Pastéis and eating it in Lisbon
Seafood and beer at Cervejaria Trinidade in Lisbon
An authentic Portuguese meal at Casa do Alentejo in Lisbon

Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home

Don’t miss out - subscribe to Heather on her travels

6. Weekend in London at the Mandarin Oriental - Podcast

In Podcast Episode 6 I’m in London for a winter weekend meeting up with friends and staying at the fabulous Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge. As I travelled with my teenage daughter you’ll hear some recommendations from friends who live in London on the things that children will enjoy, as well as suggestions from the Concierge at the Mandarin Oriental on London attractions that his guests enjoy close to the hotel.

I’ll be telling you about our Asian style dinner at the Park restaurant, the luxurious suite in which we stayed overlooking the park and our experiences shopping with teenagers in London. If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe to my podcast series on I-tunes to be updated with new podcasts. If you are a subscriber to the blog you’ll already receive podcast updates as well as all my other articles.

To download the Weekend in London at the Mandarin Oriental podcast, right click here 35 min [mp3]

To subscribe to all my podcasts in ITunes click here

Dinner in the Park Restaurant

Orangery at Kensington Palace

Show Notes

In the podcast today you’ll hear;

• Recommendations from Daisy (aged 10) and Lola (aged who live in London on things that children will enjoy. They love the Tate Modern gallery , The Sea-life Aquarium on the South Bank , The Science Museum in South Kensington, Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, the Princess Diana Memorial Playground in Hyde Park and seeing shows like Sister Act, War Horse, Hairspray, Billy Elliott and Mary Poppins.
• About our Prince of Wales suite in the Mandarin Oriental  which was extremely luxurious in classical English style, overlooking Hyde Park.
• Shopping for teenagers in the huge fashion store, Top Shop, at Oxford Circus.
• Admiring the hampers at the food emporium Fortnum and Masons, with a hamper for every occasion from a gift of English produce to Graduation hampers to tuck boxes to send to your children at boarding school.
• Eating in the Park Restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where they serve top class Asian food and I ate Crab Cakes and Thai Green Curry and finished with African Amber tea.
• A chat with Senior Concierge, Mike Selcuk at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel, about the things that he recommends for his international guests from the Middle East, US and the UK. He suggests the following activities;
• In Hyde Park behind the hotel you can find many activities for families, such as boating on the Serpentine lake, horseriding, feeding the ducks and the Princess Diana Memorial Playground and the Memorial Fountain.
• Across the park you’ll find Kensington Palace where some of Princess Diana’s dresses are on display and you can take tea in the Orangery.
• For shopping there’s Harrods and Harvey Nichols and further on are the three museums of South Kensington, as well as the Royal Albert Hall where you can have a tour or attend a concert.
• In the other direction is Buckingham Palace which is open in the summer when the Queen is on holiday, and where the Changing of the Guards takes place daily in summer.
• Families may enjoy the London Eye, the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London and Madame Tussauds and taking the hop on hop off bus around the sights of London.
• There is a Duck Tour which is a combination of bus and boat that goes on the river that you can take by the river near Waterloo Station and the Cabinet War rooms used by Winston Churchill in the war.
• Miko also often makes reservations for his quests to see popular shows like Oliver, Lion King, Mama Mia, Billy Elliot and the new show Legally Blonde as well as getting reservations to the top London restaurants.
• The music on the podcast today was Venus as a girl by Andy McKee and Travelogue by George Wood on MusicAlley.com
• I received a complimentary stay at the Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park Hotel, in order to write an article for Kiwi Collection.com - read my review of the Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park, London here.

Listen to other recent Podcasts

05 An Autumn weekend in Lisbon
04 Visiting the Munich Christmas Markets
03 Ecuador and the Amazon Rainforest
02 My Istria Travel Diary
01 Family Travel with Hospitality Club

Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home
Don’t miss out - subscribe to Heather on her travels

Ships and Shopping at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

If you’re on England’s south coast and are looking for a post-Christmas (or any time of year) family day out, I recommend a visit to the Historic Dockyards and the Gunwharf Quay Shopping Centre at Portsmouth for a combination of ships and shopping.

To start with the shopping, I met my sister and niece for a girl’s day out at Gunwharf Quays, which is an Outlet shopping centre, selling designer brands at reduced prices, so there were plenty of opportunities to tick a few things off the Christmas list. You’ll find mainstream and designer names such as Paul Smith, Burberry, Timberland, Hobbs and French Connection as well as a multi-screen cinema and the Spinnaker tower, a sail shaped tower from which you can get a view over the whole harbour area. The complex is right beside the Portsmouth Marina and is easy to get to by train with Portsmouth station only minutes away, or by car with an underground car park right beneath the shopping centre.

When we’d picked up a few designer bargains, we stopped for lunch at one of the pubs on the quayside, overlooking the yachts bobbing in the marina. There are plenty of restaurants to choose from, but I liked the traditional look of the Old Customs House pub, which was in one of the renovated old brick buildings from the old dockyard days and served moderately priced but nicely presented pub food - see the menus here. There were several different rooms upstairs and downstairs and an open bar area with lots of people out for Christmas drinks or meals from work.

After catching up with family news over lunch we visited the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth which is a few minutes from the Gunwharf Quays shopping area and where you could easily spend a whole day if you wanted to see everything there.  There is a choice of tickets - to either see all the attractions or to choose to visit just one as well as the museums which are open to all. As we only had the afternoon, we chose to visit the primary attraction which is the HMS Victory.

The HMS Victory must be the most famous ship in the Royal Navy, as the flagship on which Vice Admiral Lord Nelson led the British Fleet to win the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 but was killed during the battle by a French sniper’s bullet. You can see HMS Victory on quieter days as part of a guided tour and when you buy the entrance ticket, you will be given the time of the tour. On busier days there is a free-flow system where you can walk around the ship and guides will be available to tell you about different aspects of the ship.

It’s well worth taking the tour which in our case was guided by an ex-naval gunner, who was giving the last tour before his retirement - I believe I detected a tear in his eye as he walked us back down the gangplank at the end of the tour. The guided tour took us around the different decks and cabins with information about how the seamen and officers lived, ate and fought on the warship in the 18th century. We relived the Battle of Trafalgar, which took place off the coast of Spain and the death of Lord Nelson, who was a national hero and was brought back to a state funeral in London, his body preserved for the journey in a cask of brandy. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the ship, and I didn’t fancy getting a telling off by an ex-naval gunner with such shiny shoes, but you can see some photos of the interior here.

We learned about the cannons and ammunition and about how quickly the British Navy could fire them, due to the constant training they had at sea compared to the French and Spanish who were often blocaded in port. Our guide kept the talk entertaining with explanations of the everyday expressions originating from naval life.

As the majority of seamen were ‘pressed men’ who had taken forcibly from pubs or the streets to join the navy, dicipline was harsh. Punishment was by lashes from a whip called the ‘Cat O’nine tails’ which when it was brought out of it’s bag was known as ‘letting the cat out of the bag’ . After the whipping the surgeon would treat the wounds on the seaman’s back with salt, the most ready antiseptic they had, leading to the expression ‘Rubbing salt into the wound’ , Ouch! and the scars left on the seaman’s back following a whipping would stay with him for the rest of his life, making him ‘a marked man’. The meals of meat stew and ship’s biscuit that were served on a square wooded platter, got a bit monotonous but might be more than a poor man might get at home, leading to the term ‘three square meals’ and the raised edge of the platter was known as the fiddle. If someone had more than his fair share so that the food was touching the edge, it was known as being ‘on the fiddle’.

I thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the HMS Victory which was brought to life by the stories and anecdotes from everyday naval life recounted by our guide. Afterwards we only had a short time left before the dockyards closed and so we had a quick look around one of the Naval museums with with more information about the HMS Victory.

If we had bought the full ticket, there were several other attractions to see such as;

HMS Warrior - a 19th century Victorian iron clad war ship, powered by steam as well as by sail power, where you can take a guided tour to hear about what life was like for Victorian seamen.

The Mary Rose - a Tudor warship, the favourite of King Henry VIII and sank off the coast of Portsmouth in view of the king in 1545. The ship was brought to the surface in 1982 and has been undergoing preservation ever since. The ship is currently out of view while further restoration is done, but the museum and artifacts are on display.

Action Stations - a hands on activity centre that brings to life the skills and activities of the Navy, such as climbing walls and flight simulators.

Harbour Tours - you can take a 45 minute boat tour of Portsmouth Harbour with a commentary, and see some of the modern warships and Naval Vessels moored here.

The tickets are quite expensive at £12.50 Adult/£8.50 Child for a single attraction or £18 adult/£13.50 child for an all-inclusive ticket, but if you can allocate half a day for a single attraction or a full day to see all the attractions, you’ll find it good value, as there is a lot to see of interest and it is very well explained and presented. With the all-inclusive ticket, there’s also the opportunity to come back within a year and see any attractions you missed the first time.

Other articles to enjoy

A free day out in Greenwich in London
A river trip up the Thames to Greenwich - Video
Christmas at the Geffrye Museum in London

Travel Resources

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard Website
Gunwharf Quays Website
Spinnaker tower Website
HMS Victory Official Website
HMS Warrior Official Website
The Mary Rose Official Website

www.flickr.com heatheronhertravels’ Portsmouth photoset

Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home

Don’t miss out - subscribe to Heather on her travels

Next Page »