Vintage and other shopping etc. in Lisbon?

[Lucky Strike]

(I hope this is the right sub-forum for this)

Leaving for three weeks in four hours. With the little wife. This is sort of a belated honeymoon, so we're willing to spend a bit for quality.

We're staying at some hotel called Eden, which is smack in the middle of town, for the first four or five days, and we'll then decide on excursions by train or rental car.

I've never been to Portugal before, and beyond general knowledge, leafing through the Lonely Planet guide and some tentative googling, I know nothing.

Please help...

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Well, the wineshops there will have plenty of vintage port ...

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[Lucky Strike]

Oh, they do! My suitcases will be port-heavy on the flight back in a couple of weeks.

We're staying at this amazing-looking art deco theatre, converted into a hotel: http://www.viphotels.com/hotelmain.aspx?HotelID=6

The rooms are the boring, business-traveller type,though. Nice roof terrace with pool and stunning views.

Yes! Found that the whole town is on a brutal summer sale, including the an old-time shop here, Nunes Correa. Very nice house-brand shoes. Three pairs of benchmade, Goodyear-welted shoes (suede double-monks, suede desert boots with Dainite sole, black bit loafers) and two matching belts: 95 euros, - say, around $100.

I had a look at the finer antiques shops here, a lot of fine stuff, and some super, but nothing really spectactular yet. The antiquarian booksellers seem very good, I only looked in the windows of those. I've decided to work myself systematically through the ceramics museum and the military one, and do some hit-and-run visits to the others.

It's off to the Sunday flea-market tomorrow, you'll never learn as much about a place's history and values as when you see it's junk/antiques markets.

And yes, the Portuguese had colonies all over the place, it's an extraordinary mix of races here, - I've never seen more mixed-race couples anywhere, which is a good thing in itself, of course. Well just look what the mixing has done to the food...

On the minus side: a hell of a lot of insisting beggars and hash and coke peddlars in the streets, though. The beggars are the type that show off infested sores and amputated stumps, - there was a man sitting not far from the hotel who had no face, just a sort of blank with holes in it.