Lisbon (Lisboa)

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Lisbon: September 16-17

We travelled by train to Lisbon, which was quite different from what I had expected. I think I’d seen a Sean Connery movie years ago that showed the colourful buildings set into the hill overlooking what I took to be the sea. However, what the water actually was is an really large estuary.

The town of Lisbon is much less pristine than the towns I had visited in Spain, and you notice that Portugal’s economic situation must be lower than that of Spain. However, it certainly has a vibrancy to it that was quite different to Spain. No ned for white tableclothes here!

On our orientation walk we visited the local church and the Castle/fort on the hill which provided great views across the city. From the top of the hill I saw the colourful buildings that I had seen in the film.

The next day three of us headed out early to a nearby town called Sintra. We caught a local train for 45 minutes, and then had espresso and a pastry for breakfast. In Portugal more people speak English than in Spain which I think they are quite proud of. In Portugal they use subtitles for English movies and TV but in Spain they dub everything into Spainish. We found that there was a public bus that you could by a round trip ticket that let you off at the various spots in town. The village with handcrafts and a Palace, the Castle and the most amazing Palace on the very top of the hill.

We first visited the Moorish Castle/fort with the crowded bus travelling with a very windy forested road. The castle was more extensive than the one in Lisbon, including more steps. They had a rainwater (pluvial) cystern system that provided vital water storage in case of seige. It was a windy day and the flags created some great sound effects as we wandered around. Jumping back on the bus we took a short journey further up the hill to the Palace.

The owner had designed it using many styles including Moorish arches and tile work. The use of colour was also impressive, giving the whole place a fairytale feel. It was an amazing place to visit and hopefully the pictures will do it some justice. We caught the bus back down to the village and enjoyed a late lunch, and wandered through the town streets before heading back to Lisbon. We were surpised to learn that evening that the rest of the group had come later to Sintra, but didn’t stop at the top Palace, which we thought was the real hilight.

The following day we went with our leader by tram to a nearby town of Belem. The Belem tart (also called Portugese tart) was created here. We had tried some in Lisboa (one is not enough) and tried more to compare and contrast with the original. I decided I liked the ones in Lisboa just a little bit better.

The historic monastery was closed due to an important parade with EU visitors, who were running late. We stayed and watched for a while but there are only so much of soldiers in formation that you can take. We headed off to the waterfront where there was an amazing and somewhat controversial monument that had been built to commemorate Portugal time as explorers/discoverers (and conquerors). It appears as the prow of a ship with notable characters on board.

A little further up is a bastion that was interesting if not least for being the place where the first elephant was seen on European shores. We headed back and the parade seemed to be over by now, and but it was time to head back to be ready for our early afternoon journey to the Algarve.

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