Old town today

Almost completely deserted Sunday lunchtime.

Traffic of all sorts including a taxi was driving around as it would have been 20 years or more ago!

The traffic through the square is on an official diversion so that cars can get out of the car park. I didn't see the signs the other day. The usual way is blocked by the drainage works. Central Station have builders in, big time.

I remember the market stalls from my first visit in around 1985.

Vaccine availability wise (in the second quarter, April, May, June, availability is expected to hugely ramp up) there's no reason why the rest of Europe won't be the roughly same. The only variable really is the gap between first and second doses, here we're largely sticking with the 3/4 weeks, the UK has gone with 12 weeks which seems to have worked out quite well, that's a choice each country makes for themselves, but can seriously effect the apparent headline % "vaccinated" figure.

That said a 70% figure by the end of September is low no matter what way you cut it.

Fairly empty still today. None of the tourist restaurants and bars were open except Casa Nova. The various pastelarias and cafés were open, but few customers. Daimler's has the builders in. One or two other places looked like they might be stirring but the majority are not.

The square seems to have turned back into a car park.

A lot of the souvenir shops along the Avenida da Liberdade were open.

But not the eateries except for the coffee shops.

This is the new bit at the back of Sir Harry's, a hostel if I recall correctly but nothing to say so.