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Published: April 23rd 2008
March 26th, 2008.
Hi Friends and Family,
’Sorry that I haven’t updated this blog since, but being at home is not like being on holiday! Things to do, people to see, places to go. I mean, Berlin IS a funky town baby. Anyway, here we go…..
Some of you already know that I like history and museums so today was going to be a cultural day. First, to the most important place of all - Castelo de Sao Jorge. What an impressive place. It’s a splendid castle perched on top of Lisbon’s highest hill and from which you can see over the city and across the Tagus River.
The castle’s formation was laid in 138 BC and the Moors arrived in 711 and stayed for 400 years. After a dramatic four month “Siege of Lisbon” in 1147, the castle was recaptured by the Christian crusaders who were on their way to Jerusalem. It was such a beautiful day and really excellent for strolling around, and so onto the maze-like streets of the “Alfama” once again.
It was lovely to see traditional touches of old time Portugal in the nations’ capital city. As the houses are quite
close together, washing lines hung all over the place and across tiny, winding, cobbled streets.
We also planned to go to the “Caso do Fado e da Guitarra Portuguese” ( Fado ) Museum. This museum depicts everything about the history of fado music, its working class Alfama roots and of course, Portuguese guitars! Unfortunately, it was closed for a three- month renovation period. Ah well, nothing doing.
We continued taking unusual twists and turns even passing an old castle that had been turned into an apartment building!
For lunch, we sat outside and joined a Canadian couple. “The Berliner-in” had a salad whilst I opted for a meat-like dish. I supposed it to be a sort of scotch egg but what it actually was, was a sort of sausage meat stuffed and then fried and accompanied by a fried egg and side salad.
I tried my best. I really did but I didn’t like it! I liked the bread and couvert ( side appetisers ) though!
After lunch we continued our cultural journey through to the Museo de la Ciudad ( City Museum ). This intriguing museum is situated on the edge of the city.
You would normally take the underground train but we wanted to see the locality, so we took a local bus instead. The museum tells the compelling story of Lisbon’s evolution and paintings and documents of what Lisbon looked like before the devastating earthquake in 1755.
Strangely, the museum had beautiful peacocks wandering all over the courtyard!
We took the underground train back to our hostel and decided to have a rustic dinner of bread, cheese, tomato and tuna. I decided to take it easy on the alcohol as the hostel was organising a pub crawl of which I was definitely participating in. The deal was a Happy Hour thing from 22:00. €1,50 for as much beer as you can drink! People, I had to let it go ‘cos I had previously been drinking wine, it had been a very hot day and I didn’t want the alcohol to get to my head. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!
Anyway, we all assembled together at about 23:30 and then we were ready to go. “The Berliner-In” needed her beauty sleep so I joined the crowd and a young American from Boston and another young Austrian, joined
me. We were off.
We picked up another group from a neighbouring hostel and so a host of 30-50 revellers went out for a good time.
Living in Berlin can sometimes spoil you for the quality of extremely good bars that are all over the city and the 24 hour open-all-day culture. The Lisbon “pubs” we frequented on this crawl although in the very bohemian and hip “Bairro Alto”, seemed to be filled with tourists and foreigners like ourselves but for €5 and a couple of free shots, all was forgotten and nevertheless good going.
I mingled with Brazilians, lots of Americans ( who were here on their spring time university break ) and fellow Brits. We went to about three pubs and then we went to a cave-like club the type that can be seen all over Europe and for once, local Portuguese could also be found there.
It really got going at about 04:00 and at one point was pretty jam-packed. Yes! Now you’re talking!!
I’m not revealing any secrets mate but I was in my own bed by 06:00!
See Ya!!
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