Feast of St Anthony

June 12th was the start of the feast of St. Anthony and a city wide festival of sardines! I'm still not sure what the connection between the two is, although perhaps there are stories of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes. Pat and Gerald had never gone into the city for this so we decided we should make our way into Lisbon. However, we would do so early so as to miss some of the crowds. Once we found an appealing temporary restaurant set up in a courtyard facing the streets we sat down to have our typical festival dinner: grilled sardines (5 each) bread, salad, boiled potatoes and some sort of chorizo starter. There was definitely a party atmosphere going on. I was quite amused to watch the three men manning the grills with sardines on their heads...little did I realize I'd acquire my own sardine hat soon enough and wear it the rest of the evening. We walked around after that; admiring the sardine decorations, colorful hangings, constant people out grilling sardines in the street (my favorite was a man who had a grill shaped like a boat) until we reached an area that was to have a parade...a very stretched out parade that had elaborate costumes, even crazier props to carry and where it was very difficult to find a spot where you could see them pass by much less perform. Quite the experience. We got back just after midnight when the party was probably just starting to hit full swing.