Lisbon, Portugal
I took an over night train from San Sebastian to Lisbon, Portugal. Oh, if I had more time. It’s actually Lisboa so I’m going to stick with their spelling and pronunciation. The train left at 7 pm and arrived at 730 in the morning. It couldn’t have been any better. I got a sleeper car because everything else was booked up. It was worth it. Arriving in the morning is always a good thing for me except many hotels don’t let you do an early check in. I once again didn’t have any reservations and once on the ground I asked a couple of security guards at the train station and they both pointed to Hotel IBIS Lisboa.
I checked in and the staff was amazing. It was reasonably priced and the room was spacious with all the amenities I needed. I checked out the map and although I wasn’t in the town center, I was close to the Oriente train, metro, taxis, shuttles, and tour bus lines. After a shower and a quick spin through the Internet I hopped on a hop on/hop off yellow bus tour. You pay 20 euro and can get on or off whenever and where ever you want and just catch another one when you are ready. They go about every 20 minutes except in traffic, then it might be an hour.
I had never been to Lisboa before so this was a great way to get the layout of the city and listen to the recorded history on the bus. I hopped off in the town center where there are numerous restaurants and cafes all the way around town. I walked into the Hard Rock. The tile work on the sidewalks and in the squares is amazing and even on some of the buildings. The statues were impressive and of course Lisboa is considered one of the oldest cities in Europe. There are archeological sites up at Castelo de S. Jorge dating back to the Iron Age, 7th-3rd century B.C. There are also finds of the Moorish habituating here 11th -12th century and then the Palace, ‘Palace of the Counts of Santiago’, each built basically on top of the older structures. An addition is in one of Homer’s stories Odysseus looks for Achilles here back in the day and finds a defensive wall bigger than anything he’s seen. That means that Homer knew of Lisboa by word of mouth or other muse singing their ballads of life and experience is an inspiring note to take in.
The streets are narrow, bricked and covered in a mess of material but hidden cafes and restaurants lie in waiting as their fragrant BBQ’s cook up a siren like storm that lures you down a staircase you would not consider otherwise. Don’t forget to put beeswax in your nose and ears or you’ll be drawn into a musical, food aromatic, romantic trance and never want to leave.
Taxi rides from down town center are around 10 euro so if your not into the yellow or blue other colored bus tours for 20 round trip with an advertisement in your ear periodically and more on your own, the taxis are reasonable depending on what you want to accomplish; for instance if you want to cross the closest thing to the Golden Gate bridge in Lisboa it’s possible, I’m told it was the same engineering company but don’t quote me, it’s un-researched but here’s a photo from the wall at Castelo de S. Jorge looking over most of Lisboa.
It was nice having the train station so close because Lisboa is a big city and there are a lot of things to see and do outside like go to some great beaches 20 minutes away or head to Sintra and see Quinta da Regaleria. Quinta da Regaleria was the summer residence of the Carvalho Monteiro family. The house was built in the neo-manueline style. Some of Portugal’s best and most famous artists worked on the buildings and sculptures: Antonio Goncalves, Joao Machado, Costa Motta, and Rodrigo de Castro did the sculpting and Jose de Fonseca did most of the elaborate wood sculpting. I have never seen the likes or its equal in any country. To top it off the botanical gardens are immense with out buildings, walkways, underground tunnels and passageways.
To top off my time in Lisboa I went to the aquarium for a quick spin through and as I left I saw a line forming outside one of the concert venues near the Ibis and I asked someone in line what it was for and they replied, “It a concert and Sting is playing.” I got in line and bought a ticket. It was a four-day festival and the night I went I saw Milky Chance, The Vaccines, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Sting, and Madeon. There were smaller groups and bands playing outside and there was of course lots of food and drink everywhere.
