May 7. Lisbon

 This was our one proper day in Lisbon - which I appreciate was not enough, and we didn't really get beyond the city centre. The day was really divided into three parts; a walking tour, our trip to the castle, and dinner.

So the day started with a guided walking tour, which went from about 9am to 12.30pm. It went to many squares, a cathedral, and up a funicular railway (these are fairly common, and the trams and funiculars are all yellow) to the Bairro Alto district. We stopped for a tart, a cod fishcake with green wine (both very nice) and, at the end, a glass of the ginginha cherry liquor which is ubiquitous here.

Pastel de Nata

Elevador de Gloria

In the afternoon we were left to our own devices. So we went to the castle, Castelo de San Jorge, on the hilltop to the east of the city centre. This involved an elevator and a lot of steep streets. The castle includes a very thick walled but empty traditional castle design surrounded by lower buildings. We looked around and stopped for a drink.

Then we walked down through the old Alfama district and stopped at the cathedral, Se de Lisboa. We'd only just got back to our room when we got a message that much of the tour group were downstairs having a drink so the we joined them and later all went to a local restaurant.

With a few more days there is a lot more we'd like to see, but we're moving on tomorrow.

May 6. LGW-LIS

 We chose Gatwick for most of our flights this trip (just not our initial arrival) because it's a bit closer to Kent. Though still an hour and a half away, rather than two and a half hours. It's not very exciting though; we were up fairly early for the short walk to the terminal and had a quick look around the shops, which were pretty boring. There was essentially no passport control or emigration checks.Then we went to the lounge, which was crowded to the point of being unpleasant. Particularly because we wanted breakfast and a crowded buffet is never appetising. But we survived, and sat and read to pass the time. Travel involves a lot of doing nothing.

The flight to Lisbon is nearly three hours but it went quickly enough. The only holdup was the long queue to get through passport control before we got our bags. Fortunately someone from the tour met us and got us to our hotel smoothly.

The Moon and Sun Hotel is a nice, contemporary looking place in the heart of the city. It's footprint is very small though and the rooms are correspondingly cramped, with almost no storage space. This is more of a problem because the two suitcases we brought are the modern clamshell design, rather than top-loading, so you need space to open them right up, which is awkward.

Anyway, we survived these hardships and had a short rest and regroup, then had time to walk around the local area. This means there are some photos today. The area is squeezed between hills to the west and east, and the Tagus to the south. It's all narrow streets with tall apartment buildings in bright colours. Some are covered in coloured tiles.

The streets are lined with cafes and tourist shops selling tiles, sardines and tarts.

Sardine Shop

Portugese Tarts

Praca do Comercio

In the evening there was a meeting of the group we're with - a dozen people, about half Australasian and half North American. This covered organisational stuff then, after a short break, we all went out to dinner. Luckily they seem like a decent group of people. Lynn and I ate cod cataplana, which is a kind of stew or bouillabaise. On the way back we left the group and went up the Elevador de Santa Justa, an elaborate lift used to get part way up the hillside which is now a tourist attraction.