Lisbon — Final Day
The final day on any trip is always a bit odd as there is a more clock watching brief to bear in mind as at some point there is that need to head off to the airport, you can’t just say sod it and get the next plane instead. And there is the packing, much of which on this trip meant refolding unused clothes we had brought. Mainly because there was the idea that we would come back in the evening, get changed, and then go out for food. Which didn’t happen at all, plus there was a bit of doubling up with hot and mild weather clothing. The unused side of the main case was a lot fuller than the dirty washing side.
Breakfast was the usual lunacy. We had been noticing little oddities, but I’ve rolled them all up into a leaving day edition. There has been a man in the hotel all week. Easily recognisable as he’s about 6’ 5”, bald and shiny at the front of his head, and then a foot long mullet down the back. He’s been getting a glass (for the fruit juice) and using it for coffee, pressing the americano button on one of the machines, and then whipping the glass out before the milk is poured (there is another machine which does just black coffee). He will then disappear, leaving the rest of the family in the restaurant, and then he would be back ten minutes later to do the same coffee routine all over again. It wasn’t until this morning that we saw where he was going. He went outside and sat in his car with the door open to drink his coffee, occasionally playing with the windscreen wipers (it wasn’t raining). I’m not who was happier with this arrangement, him, or his family.
Coffee in a fruit juice glass may sound weird, but there are always lunatics trying to go one better. In addition to mullet man, I have seen someone take a bowl (which is there for the cereals) and do their coffee into that. And conversely someone using a coffee cup to put their cereals in. Additionally, the breakfast room had a little Danone fridge in the corner, on investigation, it was full of Nestle yoghurts. I thought I wasn’t a morning person, but shit, I’m a fully functioning person compared to some of these.
Anyway, after the breakfast fun and games and packing, we checked out, left the cases, and went out for our last little wander of the trip. The fact we had dressed for going home and I had jeans and a jacket on meant it was bright sunshine and no rain.
We headed to the Edward VII park. It had been set out when most of the city was rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake, but they renamed it in honour of the visit of our king to the city in 1903. And for some reason they never renamed it back after he went home. Weirdos.
The park slopes gently uphill. Of course it does, this is Lisbon. You are going to be hard pushed to find anywhere flat to build a park.
About halfway up is the Pavilion Carlos Lopez which has some beautiful blue and white tiled scenes from history upon its walls.
In front of one a woman, and her photographer friend are set up. She has six juggling clubs with bright orange ends which she is juggling in front of the tiles while her friend takes phots from differing lengths away. When I say juggling, perhaps trying to juggle would be a more accurate description. When she drops most of the clubs, Helen and I say in unison, ‘sack the juggler.’
At the top of the park’s slope is a modern sculpture to the 1974 revolution.
And in front of it is the wonderful view down the hill, back over the laid out gardens, to the statue to the Marques de Pombal (who laid out the new city after the earthquake) in the middle of the double roundabout, along the main drag of the Avenue de Liberdade beyond and then there in the distance is the river.
Having come up one side of the park we go to amble down the other side and as we do we find ourselves outside the Lisbon Greenhouse.
It is a botanical garden, and we had seen the roof from above and the side and not twigged it was the greenhouse we had seen marked on the map. It is huge.
And full of greenery you may be surprised to know.
And flowers.
None of which I know the name of. Helen does, she knows most of them, and tells me what they are. Contrary to popular belief, I do listen when she tells me stuff, but where plant life is concerned, my mind does not want to keep that stuff. Which is a bit strange considering how much utter crap it is more than willing to keep.
I did retain the names of two, but only because I was been deliberately silly about them. Apparently, Nathan wants a cheese plant. Of which there were loads here, so many in fact it was more like a cheese forest, and I would certainly be happy if there was such a thing as a cheese forest and that cheese would grow on trees.
The other being a wisteria. And that’s only because I was saying I had heard people were going mad about this flower. ‘Really?’ came the puzzled response from Helen. ‘Yeah, it’s wisteria hysteria.’ I will point out I already had my coat and hat on at this point.
It was quite interesting, and I don’t mean in an air quotes fingers kind of way. Plus I was taking the opportunity to try and get some macro photography of the various flowers done.
I don’t know what these white ones are called, but trying to get near enough to them to do a macro shot was difficult as the juggler and her photographer mate had set up in front of them and now had another hanger on with them. In the previous half an hour or so since we’d last seen them hogging things worth taking pictures of, the juggling skills hadn’t improved.
We had heard the peacocks, but it wasn’t until we were outside again that we saw them. Just strutting around and not being tortured by moronic tourists into fanning out their feathers in distress.
There was time for a last café stop, a final cappuccino and pastel de nata in the park before it was time to head back to the hotel and pick up the cases ready for the journey to the airport.
Which didn’t take as long as the journey out seemed to.
I had the camera ready for some of the station art,
and got some blurred shots, some that missed altogether, some with window reflections,
and a feeling that somehow we’d missed a couple of stations as I was sure I’d seen some much more striking examples on the journey into the city.
The journey through the airport was smooth, bag drop was easy and for a change it was Helen getting the grilling about bag contents. Security was fine, there was a bit of duty-free shopping (not that there is duty on boxes of pastel de natas, just idiot tourist premium). I had been hoping to find a Forca Portugal store, but there wasn’t one. Having gotten Sporting Lisbon and Porto pens and magnets the previous day, I thought I would complete the big three, only for the Benfica official store not to have them, and the Football Gate store to have the Sporting and Porto stuff I’d got the day before, but to do no Benfica stuff because they had their own store.
Passport control was quick, and both coming out and going back the border police have been friendly and efficient. Something that perhaps the US ones could do with coming and getting some training on.
The queue at the gate was the usual bunfight / free for all. No sort of order in being called up, just get your elbows out and shuffle slowly forward in the queue. Or do what we did and sit there and wait for the back of the queue to come to us before joining it. And then find that on the plane there was no one else on our set of three seats, and the overhead lockers were empty. Bonus. Then it is roll to the runway and away we go.
Overall the trip was great.
Lisbon is a wonderful city. There is so much to see and do and four nights is nowhere near enough time to do anything more than scratch the surface. It is good exercise too, rest assured that if you walk for more than a couple of minutes in any direction there will be a hill to climb up or shuffle down.
The food has been wonderful, and it is cheap. Everything has been really tasty, and they certainly don’t scrimp on their portion sizes (they must know people need feeding up to be able to deal with walking up all those hills). And the people are so friendly.
The Azulejos are wonderful, and there are many splendid examples of art on the tiles. Although the occasional one did make us smile for the wrong reason. This one was designed to represent justice with the scales. But all I can see is saggy tits. Which again, says more about me than anybody else.
The only downsides have been the very showery weather, which no one can really do anything about, and which hasn’t dampened our spirits anywhere near the amount they have dampened out clothes. And the attempted pickpocket / bag theft thing.
But we would definitely recommend coming back with more time to get around more of the city and beyond (Sintra is only 45 minutes away).
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