We put a lot of mileage on the car in the last couple of days – again! Yesterday, after puttering around in the morning, Barb got all packed and we headed for Lisbon which is about 180 miles away. Barb’s flight this morning was at 7 am so we decided to just stay in Lisbon last night.
The drive was pretty easy and I’m getting pretty used to the freeways here. We have yet to see the equivalent of a highway patrol officer on the roads. The posted speed limit is usually 120 kmp (75 mph) but you routinely see people traveling well in excess of that. I have no idea how much I have racked up in tolls on the freeways but I’m sure I will find out when I turn the car in next Saturday.
If we were going to plan this again, we would probably just fly out of Faro which is about an hour drive from here or take the train to Lisbon which takes about 4 hours. Since we kind of cobbled together this itinerary after we’d both already purchased tickets, we have had to do a few things that we wouldn’t have done if we had planned this together from the start. That said, the drive to Lisbon on the freeways is pretty easy and takes about three hours.
Our hotel was just a block from Avenida da Liberdade which is a main boulevard in Lisbon which is known for being one of the most expensive shopping streets in Europe. We went for a walk after we checked in and it was like strolling along a tree lined Rodeo Drive. If you want to drop a little money on Cartier, Prada, and all of the other high end brands, this is the place. We just found a quiet little place for dinner on a side street and let that suffice for our ‘splurge.’
Barb’s flight out of Lisbon was at 7 am and since it was an international flight we wanted to make sure we got there in plenty of time so we left the hotel a little after 4 am. Needless to say, there is very little traffic in Lisbon at 4 am and we found our way to the airport in about 20 minutes. Even with that, there was already a line at the British Airways counter to check in but we got her bags dropped off and I watched her disappear into the security apparatus at Lisbon airport.
It was about 5:30 am by then and I got in our trusty little Hyundai Kauai headed back to Lagos. It was a pretty straight shot from the airport onto the freeway and I had very little company on the road as I headed south in the darkness. I encountered a few patches of rain from time to time but raced along the nice smooth freeways in the dark until it started getting light around 6:45 a.m. I made great time coming back and decided to stop at a large super market we had seen on the way into Lagos several times to get some groceries for the week before I went back to the condo.
I am here by myself now for the next few days. I head to Lisbon on Saturday, fly to London on Sunday and the fly to New York for Thanksgiving on Monday. I have scheduled a boat trip for Friday and, other than that, I will probably just continue to explore Lagos and try to talk to a couple of realtors.
This afternoon, I decided to take a short hike. There is a boardwalk running along the tops of the cliffs you can see from the balcony. I decided to hike up there and see what that was all about. It also felt good to stretch my legs after two long days of driving.
The boardwalks/stairs run all the way out to the Ponta da Piedade where we had driven earlier in our stay. When you are up there, it is easy to see why they built these. There is tremendous erosion along these cliffs and there are parts that occasionally fall into the ocean. There is even a large hole alongside the driveway to our condo (the white building in the first photo) that has eroded and I’m not sure how they are going to fix it. In any case, it was a nice hike but I think I’m finished for the day. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. The adventure continues.
