|
Lisbon was our first stop in Portugal, at least for any length of time. We came into Portugal in the middle of March, 2001, on the train from Merida, Spain. Definitely the local route for the train - we had to pay extra for the Spanish portion because it was a Talgo train, faster and more luxurious than the standard regional train (but we don’t think by much!). It was still an old, slow train. We switched trains in Badajoz (Spain) to the Portuguese train which was about the same with the compartments for 6 travelers. Then about 1/2 way into Portugal we had to switch trains again and were informed that we had to make reservations for the next train. However, it cost 300 escudos for the reservation and we had no escudos. So Verna got sent into “town” to see if she could find an automated teller, since there wasn’t anything of the sort in the train station. She walked several blocks into town, but it was a lost cause. Luckily there was another train 20 minutes later that didn’t require reservations, so we took that one. This train was padded bench seating and although there were both first and second class cars, we couldn’t tell much difference between the two.
We arrived in Lisbon about 8pm and immediately started looking for the ATM machines to get escudos. Luckily, there were several. Unluckily, none of them worked. There was also an automated exchange machine - but it wasn’t working either. So we headed out for the taxi rank and told our driver where we were going and that we needed a bank! He took us directly to our hotel and luckily there was a bank on the corner. Verna went to get money while the rest unloaded the car. By the time Verna returned, the taxi driver was leaving - we hailed him to pay, but he indicated it was taken care of. We headed inside where we found Verna’s parents at the front desk - Mom had explained to the desk clerk our dilemna and he said “no problem” as he pulled an envelope of cash out from under the counter. He paid the taxi driver and had sent him on his way, explaining that he would simply put the charge on our bill. How civilized and convenient! By the way, the clerk spoke excellent English, as did quite a lot of others we encountered. This was a bit of a surprise to us since we hear very little English in Spain.
|
The weather was not the best as it was raining for much of our stay in Portugal, but we tried to make the best of it. Since we only had one full day in Lisbon, we decided to use the hop-on, hop-off bus to get our bearings and see as much as we could see in a short period of time. The bus took us down the main street (the Champs Ellysee of Portugal, as the tour guide told us!). We got off near the shopping district and headed back a block to where Jim had spied a cable car. Now this was an old cable car - all wood interior with wood benches along the sides (and graffitee on the outside). It slowly chugged us up the very steep hill; so narrow in places that pedestrians had to hugg the wall to keep out of the way. The best thing about the cable car was that it was for locals - we were the only tourists on the thing, and it was filled to capacity. One older woman talked to Verna most of the way up in Portuguese - it would have been nice to understand what she was saying!
|
|
|
At the top we found ourselves in the old part of town, the Bairro Alto. And unfortunately, not all that well cared for in the inner portions.
|
|
We understand this is an area that newer businesses are moving into and starting to renovate, but they are definitely at the leading edge and for now tend to be at the outer edges of the neighborhood. We did run upon a Web Cafe, obviously one of the newer tenants in the area. Of all the internet places we saw, almost every one of them was open from 4pm to midnight. We guess there must not be much business in the earlier hours. We walked around for a while, definitely feeling out of the tourist area, then made our way back to the bus for the next leg of the journey. From one vantage point as we were climbing or descending a flight of stairs (there are quite a few to get you up/down the steep hills), we got a great glimpse of the old castle on the hill opposite (right).
|
|
|
|
|
We rode down past the central plaza and to the waterfront, then along the river past the 25 April bridge, styled after the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco.
|
|
|
We hopped off again at the Torre de Belem (Tower of Belem, below) on the river bank. Reading about it, we found that when it was built, it was positioned in the middle of the river, to serve as a defense fortress. However, many years after it was built, the river changed course and it lost some of its intended usefulness. Still, it makes for great pictures and our tour book tells us that it is the most photographed site in Portugal.
|
|
|
Hunger took over, and we stopped at a small cafeteria-style restaurant at the harbor to taste the local cuisine. We weren’t sure what to expect, but found that the food in Portugal was as tasty as our fare in Spain—different, but every bit as good. Of course, we now understood little of what was written, so relied on what looked good and the old standby, pointing. Some of the written words looked faintly like Spanish, but the spoken word is very different. To us, Portugese sounded sometimes like French, sometimes like German, and seldom like Spanish. We were warned in our tour book to avoid using Spanish as there is a long-lived hatred of the Spanish by the Portuguese. It suggested that we were better off using English (which worked surprisingly well), but found ourselves often using Spanish without thinking about it.
|
|
We came back to Lisbon after a few days in Porto, and with the weather being a bit more pleasant, we spent an afternoon strolling though the shopping district (though couldn’t buy anything because it was Sunday and all shops were closed). There were many restaurants on the side streets of the shopping area and they all smelled wonderful. We don’t think anyone should have to go hungry in Lisbon. We also found some very nice supermarkets (2 of which were open on Sunday), and a nice juice/salad bar that had a great selection of freshly made juices and salads for eating there or taking away.
One of the things that you will notice is an art in Lisbon is the sidewalk mosaics. They are on almost every main street and some of them are quite intricate. At left is the pedestrianized shopping area. The mosaics are made of small blocks of stone, usually using only black and white, hand placed in sand then tamped down firmly. They work fairly well as sidewalks, but we noticed many that were in a state of disrepair, presumably from having cars and trucks driving upon them.
|
|
Lisbon also has a metro system which will get you to the Oriente train station (which is not the one we came in from, though it was one of the stations we passed). The downtown are of town is pretty torn up at the time we were there, for more construction of the metro. According to their map, the next link will take travelers to the international train station (Santa Apolonia), which will be a great help, but we’re sure it cut into the taxi’s business a lot. |
