Lisbon — Day One
Somewhere new for us to visit. I had been trying to find a location which would hopefully be warm in April and which neither of us had been to before, and being practical, somewhere which was a direct flight away from Gatwick. I was surprised by just how many places that ruled out. And how many places in Spain and Italy are code shared by BA ad require a change of plane along the way.
So I came up with Lisbon. Lots of variables around the dates, leave years, other events we were going to, and so on. So much so the fact that we were going during the week before Easter and all the kids would be off school passed me by completely.
It was a nice, civilised time for the easyJet flight from Gatwick to Lisbon, relatively painless apart from the ten-minute bus journey from the plane in the middle of a field somewhere to the terminal building. The Lisbon metro from the airport was straightforward. And the art in the stations was fascinating, if only I hadn’t got the camera buried away in my bag.
We popped out of the metro station, and it was two minutes to the hotel. For a change it isn’t an IHG one, as they were either in remote locations, or ridiculously expensive and had no points nights available for the four nights we were going to be here. So it is a random Booking.com hotel. Which looks decent enough in the lobby, but they are doing improvements on it. With it being a Booking.com choice we are in a before room. Which very much has an eighties Marbella vibe about it. But it is clean and has a comfy bed and its not like we’ll be spending much time outside of sleeping in it anyway. We’re going to be too busy being out exploring. Which after dumping the bags we were. It was a literal dump and run, no unpacking.
A bit of late lunch and we are off wandering down the city’s main boulevard heading towards the river. There is a market down one side of the boulevard, which we aren’t going to be distracted by, it isn’t a shopping trip. Besides aiming for the river there is no plan.
But as any regular reader will know we are easily distracted and tend to detour off at the slightest whim. There is no master plan for the trip as neither of us had looked at the guidebooks until we were on the plane. Though we have booked the standard hop on hop off bus tickets. As when don’t we?
The detouring didn’t take long to kick in as we saw a funicular off down a side street just a short walk from the main boulevard, and we headed over there for a ride up the side of the hill.
Lisbon is remarkably hilly, and most of them are steep. On the metro journey into the centre there were a couple of times where we popped out from being underground and suddenly found ourselves on a bridge over a valley before popping back into another tunnel.
Anyway, at the top of this funicular run is a short walk to gardens with views out over a lot of the city.
Next to the top of the funicular track is a building with an interesting tower and a spiral staircase up to the top. From which the views would be even better (even if it would be no good for my vertigo), but there is no public entrance to it. So we go back down and rejoin the main drag to get to the river.
A lot of the city was destroyed by a major earthquake in 1755, so most of the lower part of the city leading to the river was rebuilt in the late eighteenth century in a grid pattern, following what they had seen in Paris. They have managed to shoehorn some modern monstrosities in as they do everywhere, but there are some splendid examples of early twentieth century Art Deco buildings plugged into gaps as well.
They quite like a square here. There are some vast open paved spaces which we pass through on the way to the river.
And they certainly like a big old statue. A lot of the time it is a figure high up in the air at the top of a tall column, or as I got to be calling them as the trip went on, ‘another bloke on a stick.’
Anywhere they have a square, or a wide pavement, then they have cafes and restaurants spilling out into them. We are not going to struggle to find somewhere to eat on this trip.
Along one such alfresco dining mecca on a pedestrianised street we can see the grand archway becoming larger with each footstep.
Once through it, would you believe it, we are in another huge square. With a fountain in the middle (they do love a fountain, although not many of them have the water running), and on the other side of the square is the River.
It is the River Tagus (which I’m sure sees lots of people doing a tag us in post on social media), or as they call it in Lisbon the Tejo. At this point it is more like an inland bay. The channel which heads out west from here is wide enough, the massive suspension bridge shows that, but here it is more like being at the coast with it being the sea between you and another country. But it isn’t, that is still Portugal out over the other side of the expanse.
The sun is shining, it is a leisurely late Sunday afternoon and so we stroll along the banks of the river following the sun in going to the west, looking for somewhere to get refreshment. There are stalls along the front. The trend would very much appear to be to pina coladas served in hollowed out pineapples. A bar has a DJ playing next to the water, and in yet another square there is a live band playing traditional Portuguese music.
We find a café on the waterfront near the ferry port (for crossing the inland bay to the cities on the south of the river) in the sun and have drinks. The coffee looks amazing and tasted even better.
It is relaxing watching the people and the variety of boats going by.
We like it so much we stop there to have food. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a menu where one of the dishes have proclaimed themselves as being spiritual, but there on the menu is Spiritual Cod, which Helen ended up ordering.
It didn’t come with enlightenment or a prayer book, just in a dish looking like it was Cod Mornay.
Whilst sat outside the restaurant, another couple on the end table tried to spirit themselves away without paying, but the eagle-eyed staff noticed and ran after them, card machine in hand and got them to cough up what they had tried to avoid paying.
The sun is all but gone by the time we move on. We find we are close to the Time Out Market, so we have a wander through it to have a look. It is full and buzzy with lots of food options and certainly somewhere to think about coming back to on another evening.
We are now heading in the vague direction of the hotel. There are more squares. Buildings are being lit up. There are lots of interesting vehicles trying to entice tourists in for tours. And there are more steep uphill roads to walk up. That is the thing with guidebook maps. They show the roads and the direction they go in, but there is no mention or indication of the elevation of said roads.
After going up for what seems like a long time, we find ourselves at the top of the route of a different funicular. A quick check shows it goes down to the main drag we have walked along from the hotel earlier in the day, so we hop on.
We did know we had been going uphill for quite some time since leaving the banks of the river, but it is a surprise just how far we had climbed as the funicular ride down took a lot longer than we had imagined it would, and than the earlier one had.
When we had been going in the opposite direction earlier, the side of the road we walk along now had been full of market stalls, but they have all packed up and gone, only to leave behind the occasional café or restaurant which had been disguised by the surrounding stalls earlier.
There are lots of billboards up around the city as there had been when we were in Budapest, as there are elections on the way. I know it isn’t the correct interpretation, but I’m not sure I would be voting for someone with a slogan of Zero Future.
What had been intended to be a quick mooch about became six hours. Six very enjoyable hours, but now bed, and rest is calling us as there will be a lot more hours, so much more to see, and difficult food choices to be made for the next four days to come.
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