A lot has happened since I last posted on the 24th. Very early in the morning (6 am flight) I left Bozeman and flew to New York (via Minneapolis) where I crashed overnight on the couch at Francine’s (Jordan’s mom) apartment. My flight was due to leave at 10 pm the next night for London where I was supposed to meet up with Barb who was flying in from Phoenix. I continued to monitor both my flight and Barb’s flight throughout the day and, while mine appeared to be on time, it looked like Barb’s flight was going to be delayed to the point she would not make the connection.
There was a later British Airways flight that was supposed to leave London around 7:30 pm and arrive in Lisbon around 10:30 pm. We both rebooked on that flight. The good news is, I was able to meet up with Barb at Heathrow. The bad news is that our flight to Lisbon was delayed and we did not arrive in Lisbon until after midnight. We finally got to our hotel around 1:15 am and were throughly exhausted.
The hotel is really more like a B&B in that it only has three rooms! We did not know that when we booked it. It is a 250 year old building that used to be a private residence but a Turkish family bought it a few years ago, refurbished it and turned it into a B&B. It is a beautiful place. We couldn’t have gotten any luckier. The entire place is decorated throughout with traditional Portuguese blue painted tiles and beautiful artwork.
After finally getting a good nights sleep, we had arranged a walking tour of Lisbon for yesterday afternoon. We met up with our guide, Rodrigo, at a local landmark fountain and set off on an interesting and informative three hour walking tour. We saw a lot of interesting things including a magnificent church and what we were told is the oldest continuously functioning book store in the world. It was a lot of fun and Rodrigo was filled with all kinds of factoids and trivia about the city.
The one thing I will say about Lisbon is that it is definitely not flat. Anyone wishing to walk around the city should be prepared with good walking shoes with good tread. Most of the sidewalks and streets are cobblestone and when they get wet, they can be very slippery!! Be prepared for lots of uphills, downhills and stairs!!
After our walking tour, we were hungry since we hadn’t eaten anything since the wonderful breakfast they served at the hotel, so we started looking for a restaurant. We found a cozy little place and had a very nice dinner. Barb had fish (John Dory) and I had octopus and we shared a cheese board of local Portuguese cheeses. Everything was delicious.
This morning, we went out fairly early and had breakfast at a little local place nearby. Right across the street from our hotel, there was a flea market that stretched for several blocks so we wandered around there for a while.
Around noon, even though it was pouring rain, we headed to the train station to catch a train to Cascais which is right up the coast. After a 40 minute train ride (5 euros roundtrip) we arrived in Cascais. The rain had stopped and we started wandering around. Cascais is a beautiful coastal town with some nice beaches, a nice marina, and some nice restaurants and shops. I’m sure it gets very crazy during the summer tourist season.
The place has a very robust expat community but because it is such a beautiful place so close to Lisbon, prices have really increased over the last few years. We did go into one real estate agency and had a nice chat with the agent about long term rentals and property for sale. The good news is that Cascais is a beautiful place that has a really nice vibe to it. The bad news is that it is probably one of the more expensive place to live in the country. We knew that already so it wasn’t a big shock. But, we now have a real estate contact and will continue looking around the rest of the country in our travels.
Tomorrow we have arranged to take a tour around the city via ’tuk-tuk’, which in Asia are little three wheeled vehicles. We are looking forward to having the vehicle do some of the work on the hills. We are also looking forward to another day of exploring Lisbon before we begin our journey by rental car up the coast to Porto and then back down the middle of the country to the Algarve over the next couple of weeks.
I will hopefully get better at including some pictures in this blog but I’m still trying to learn to do this on my tablet!!