For those who know us, we are not ones for big cities but we couldn’t come
this close to Lisbon without visiting the city. We had planned to take the
scooter into Lisbon, but then thinking about it, it would mean having to take
part motorway across the River Tejo into Lisbon. The last time we took the scooter on the
motorway (last year into Valencia) it didn’t go well so we decided to give it a miss! It's a short walk through the park, at the
back of the Aire to the train station and for €4.90 each return (bargain!) we took
a leisurely 30 minute train ride into the city.
The Ponte 25 de April resembles the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It opened in 1966, linking Lisbon and the
southern banks of the Tejo. Its pillars
are 200m tall and the bridge spans 2.3km, and rises about 70m above the river. The
train, which we took runs underneath, as the cars hurtle above.
A few hundred metres from the train station is Praça de Touros do Campo
Pequeno. Considered one of the most
important buildings of neo-Arabic style in the country, it ranks as one of the
most beautiful bullrings in the world.
It opened its doors on 18 August 1982, but closed for restoration work between
2000 and 2006 and is now a modern multi-purpose space used for a lot of
concerts, that can hold up to 9,000 people.
Underneath it has a big shopping centre and cinema complex - well that’s
progress for you I guess!
For €5 we got a guided tour of the museum (the ladies English was
perfect!) and a video explaining the difference between Spanish and Portuguese
bull fighting, in that unlike the Spanish way, the Portuguese don’t kill the
bull in the ring. Instead it is wrestled
to the ground; however, the bull still gets speared and injured. Apparently, the bulls are reared specifically
for putting on just one show - they have good memories these bulls, so they
never put them in the ring twice as they will remember getting hurt and won’t
put on a show. They then go back to
their owners and they either live out their lives, or end up at the butchers. In reality though, I think these bulls are injured and unfortunately are always slaughtered.
In order to practice, the bull fighters use a ‘toy bull’, but a real cape
– which weighs a ton by the way! Another
factoid – bulls only see in black and white but the cape used to be always red
to hide the blood.
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| View from one of the box seats |
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| Mel testing out his bull fighting skills |
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| The Royal Box |
From here you can get the Metro to the ‘heart’ of
Lisbon but we decided to walk 3.5kms through the city to Martim Moniz to get a
tram. We had read that the #28 tram was
the one to take, that meanders through the little streets and districts to give
you a good overview of the city, ascending some of the steepest gradients of
any city in the world.
The walk took us through some very rundown areas of
the city, but there were some lovely buildings with vibrant blue and white or
multi-coloured decorative tiles. These
have been used to cover up most things in Portugal since its birth: public
buildings, churches, shops, houses, train stations and even park benches.
As we neared the centure it was getting very busy with tourists and we were hearing quite a lot of Australians. We
wondered if it was because of the Eurovision Song Contest that was held here on
Saturday, although why Australia are in the Eurovision we have no idea! Arriving at the tram stop the queue was about ½
mile long but undeterred we joined it.
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| Tram #28 - we are nearly at the front of the queue at this point! |
As we waited for the tram, we were approached by
lots of tour operators telling us we could take a ride in one of their little
Piaggio ‘tuk tuks’ and see it all for a bargain price of €70 for one hour for 2
people or €130 for 2 hours – that’s a lot of money and way out of our budget! When we refused (nicely) they told us that we
would probably wait about 1 ½ hours in this queue to get the tram and see very
little. Of course, we thought they were
just doing their marketing speech but in fact they were correct!
We boarded the Tram (after nearly a one hour wait), it was standing room only for us and we were packed in like sardines. Unfortunately, we saw very little out of the
tiny windows. There are 4 opportunities
where the tram stops and you can get off, but you are wedged in that
tightly that by the time you try and get off the tram it is on the go
again! The tram goes fairly slow, because although it has its own line, the streets are that narrow that cars have to use it as well in most places. One hour later the tram stopped
and we all had to all had to get off, but we weren’t back where we started. Mel got out his phone and checked his App
‘MapsMe’ to see where we were, which turned out to be in the middle of nowhere
and 3.5kms away most of the major sights and from where we had started from. We looked at one another and though what the
bleep bleep bleep! We had a bit of a
laugh about it all though and then just followed the tram line route back we had just taken to see the sights.
So, just to summarise, we walked 3.5kms through the City, to queue up for one hour to get a
tram, that took us on a one hour tram ride through the city not seeing much, to
be dropped off in the middle of nowhere and to then walk the tram line back
through the districts to see what we had missed! On the plus side it only cost us €5.80 for
the tram and we got to ride the iconic #28 tram up the steep ‘San Francisco’
streets of Lisbon.
Brace yourself for a lot of photos, there was a lot to see!
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| Basilica of Estrela |
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| Parliament |
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| You have to be fit to live here and walk these streets |
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| Dotted around the city are 3 funicular railways |
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| The archway leading to the Tejo |
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| Lovely Manueline doorway on this church |
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| Enjoying a delicious plate of sardines and a well earned rest down by the riverfront |
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| The Cathedral, with its 'fortress-like appearance and great rose window |
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| The Alfama district, the oldest part of Lisbon – a village in the heart of the city with very narrow streets that few cars can enter that has a ‘Kasbah’ feel about it. |
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| Castelo de São Jorge |
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| Rossio Lisbon’s oldest square – looking towards the Conventodo Carmo and Elevador de Santa Justa – an ugly giant lift that whisks you 32m up to a platform. |
After 10 hours of walking around Lisbon we felt we
had done the city justice but we were exhausted and time to head back to the train station. This time though we took the metro to get there, as we had done enough walking!
After our 2-day stop near Lisbon, we decided it was time to head for the coast and
chill for a few days. So we headed out of Lisbon towards Cascais, over the
bridge across the Tejo River, overlooked by a huge Jesus statue.
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| A very built up Lisbon overlooked by a Jesus statue. |
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| You only have to pay the toll one-way - going across to Lisbon |
A relatively short journey of 34 miles we arrived
at the Aire (N38.72792 W9.47483), perched
up on the cliff, with a lovely sea view at Praia do Guincho. It’s a free Aire
but no facilities, other than a small drinking water tap. When we arrived at about one o'clock, there were only
2 other motorhomes, by the evening there were about 25 of us of - all different
nationalities!
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| Sonny, the motorhome enjoying his prime spot at the beach! |
It was then a short walk down some steps to the beach, for a quick paddle in the
Atlantic. It wasn’t as cold as we
thought but there was no way we were going in for a swim given the mighty strong
under currents!
They hold the World Windsurfing Championships here
in August. A couple of lifeguards patrol
the beach but apparently people are drowned nearly every year because of the strong under currents. There were a few surfers trying their luck.
There are about 4 top end restaurants surrounding
us. Just behind us is a converted fort
with a Mitchelin- stared restaurant. Was
a bit pricey for us though, luckily we had plenty of food in the motorhome!
Time to chill before watching the sun go down.
It is so nice here, I think we will be stopping a few days.
Sally x
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