Chocolate chip cookies in Lisboa?

Mel and Sin Yi baking chocolate chip cookies

...and the results...the best chocolate chip cookies this side of the Tejo River

The Rua Augusta Arch at the Praça do Comércio.

The Rua Augusta Arch looks like a Roman triumphal arch, built to commemorate the city's reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake. From The praça, you can walk up the pedestrian Rua Augusta, with renovated buildings complete with shops and restaurants. A much more sophisticated Lisbon than our last visit in 1999.

After a typical lunch of a smoked sausage sandwich at the Baixa Mercado, we walked most of the way to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, where we were surprised to find a Jheronymus Bosch  painting of of the Temptations of St. Anthony...a Portuguese marytr/Saint. In the 1500s there was a close relationship between Flemish painters and Portugal. To see this painting up close is about as close to these grotesque figures as I ever hope to be. Equally revolting, but not

shown here, is Salome with the head of St. John the Baptist by Cranach. I prefer scenes of the little Johnny splashing in the water with Jesus.

Temptations of St. Anthony, circa 1500

To end this post on a brighter note, I give you a painting on special exhibit of the Grand Canal in Venice, by Canaletto.