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Published: August 7th 2008
So it was time for another easyjet flight, although this time we didn't have to go through stansted. We flew from Madrid to Lisbon and were suprised that we had to change our clocks when we landed. The heat continued, we picked up our rental car and only realised it had airconditioning 2 hours into our trip to porto and after acquiring a 50 euro fine for Greg failing to pick up the toll ticket when we left lisbon (give me a break I was still adapting to driving on the wrong side of the road). Still it was awesome to enjoy the freedom of the open road and our new itrip was put to good use (thanks Gra and Aileen ; ), So we made it to porto and managed to navigate the one way system and eventually found our hotel...on foot.
Porto is a hilly cobbled city of terra cotta tiled buildings. We walked up to the highest cathedral, more steps and took in the panoramic view of the city. Strolled along the river admiring the impressive steel bridge, old wooden port boats and the penthouse apartments with their beach umbrellas hanging over the balconies. We hiked up
the opposite bank to go for a tour of Graham's port cellars and tasted their produce with a cool local guide, who we managed to get a few extra tastings out of after acting interested to know what else he had in his cellar. Had a nice supper down on the river front people watching and drinking some local beer.
Next day we took the scenic route back to lisbon, first stop Obidos..a quaint little walled village, which we walked around...sort of like the great wall of portugal. Then there were more castles and turrets to be seen in SIntra. We were very happy to have our rental car and cruise past the people hiking up the winding roads to the old moorish castle. We had great views over sintra town and across to Sintra Palace from the dizzy heights...English health and safety definately haven't seen some of the guard rails on these places. It was past time to take our rental car back, which we learnt after arriving in lisbon and were charged an extra day...more school fees.
In Lisbon we had a nice little hostel and managed to cook our first home made meal on tour,
including the veggies we had missed mom. Headed out the next morning and after being offered marijuana at least 5 times in 20 minutes by people carrying 3 pairs of sunglasses "for sale" as cover, we walked around the old part of town and pedestrian streets before hopping on a tram to belem where we climbed the white marble tower hanging out over the river with a moat and everything. We stopped for lunch after a squizz at Jeronimo's monestary in need of some shade.
Then we cruised along the river under the wannabe golden gate bridge and caught a great view of lisbon from the water. For sunset we climbed up to the castle and took in the 360° panorama of the city in the fading light. We thought we better try out a traditional meal, cod as we were told by our local guide that the portuguese have 100 different ways of cooking it...found a great spot where they had typical local singing. The singers were somewhat disappointed that we didn't buy their CD.
From Lisbon it was a quick weekend stop back to the UK for the British Open Golf in Liverpool. We very quickly
packed away the flip flops and whipped out rain jackets and layers of jerseys and jeans as we were welcomed by the fine english summer.
This update is coming to you from sweltering Sicily at the base of an active volcano. Hopefully not too active. Stay tuned for the next weather update ; )
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Zita
non-member comment
Bondia Portugal!
Hey guys, Shoulda let me know u were going to stay in Pora land-could've tried to arrange for you stay at my folks place in Cascais (definitely would have been an upgrade from a hostel!) and it would have been free ;-) Anyhoo, looks like u r still having an amazing time-am very jealous! Take care, lots of love and hugs, Zi xx