Lisbon, Portugal To Venice, Italy

Lisbon, Portugal to Venice, Italy

I flew from Lisbon, Portugal to Venice, Italy where I was going to spend a few days before heading into Slovenia and north to Germany. Getting out of the Lisbon airport was chaotic with it under extensive construction and signs pointing in all directions. I’m sure it’ll be better in a couple years but for now I recommend being there a solid two hours before and international flight. Originally I was trying to fly to Sicily but the cost was outrageous, 500 euro and Venice was cheap, 200 euro.

I got out of the airport and since I had booked a hotel for two nights I figured it would be easy to get to the hotel. I had a feeling I was going to be straight into the canals but the airport isn’t really close to anything. You can get there by canal boat but that would be another issue that I hadn’t sorted yet so I just hopped a cab. I was staying at Hotel Airvenice and had I emailed them or called them I could have arranged a shuttle but I didn’t so a cab was my best choice. Now just to be totally clear, the prices can vary from driver to driver and how stressed out you seem to be. The more stressed the higher the price. I was told at reception that I got lucky paying 35 euro and that others have paid as much as 90 euro. I actually had to do it twice and the second time was 50 euro. I’ll get to that.

Airvenice is in a suburb with a quick link by train to Venice proper. The staff was wonderful and I got into my room and put my things down and went to a nearby grocery store for fruit, cheeses, breads, wine, and water. It was already turning to dusk and so I chose to have a down night in the area and just do a little wandering around. The next day I would sort out Venice.

The front desk sold me my train tickets that you have to activate at the train station or possibly catch a fine. The train took about twenty minutes to get to Venice, which is the last stop. Between the front desk and a man traveling with two sons and a daughter. Both said that walking in is more interesting than taking a canal boat, take one back if you so chose. There are price arrangements such as 10 euro an hour for a canal boat or you can pay a flat 24 Euro for 12 hours of boat and that is too much boat considering you are getting on and off like a bus. These are not the gondola boats with a man standing on the back oaring you around, these are more like houseboats with standing room only at peak season.

It was a very hot and sweat poured down everyone’s faces and backs. The lines for the museums and some of the other attractions were long and I steered clear. The architecture is obviously an attraction along with lunch at an outdoor café and people watching.

The walk in from the train station is a fairly interesting walk crossing canal bridges and following along with the masses. I’m not a shopper so it took me maybe 20 minutes to get to the main river versus others that may take all day plus lunch and a glass of chilled sangria in the shade of an umbrella.

I spent the day walking up and down the river and wandering in the narrow streets often coming to dead ends at the river’s edge and having to retrace steps or just heading off and getting lost. It was fun since I had no one to meet or any agenda. I ate lunch in a small sandwich shop filled with locals.

Beware that lots of places are shut on Sunday. Not so much in the town center but in the suburbs. When I returned I saw the grocery store closed and the coffee shop/bar around the corner was also closed until later or the next day.

I had arranged to meet a friend at the airport the next day and she and her boy friend were going to drive me into Slovenia so I checked out and headed for the airport. The power went out at the airport while I waited and to my disappointment we missed each other and I called up the Airvenice for a one night booking. With that sorted I went back into the airport and bought a ticket to Paris where I knew I could set up to buy a train ticket either to Germany or to London.

I have friends in Germany and on the border of Switzerland but some of them have busy work schedules and I really didn’t want to impose, it’s not my way. My mind was already heading to London, England. For good reasons I wanted to get my 3 month Nepal tourist visa sorted and arrange my flights back to Nepal and Thailand.

I paid 50 euro to get back to the hotel where I had another long walk in the neighborhood and enjoyed a down day in the end. I was looking forward to going back to Paris even if only for a day or two.

www.davidcdagley.com

Lisbon, Portugal

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, 7^th-3^rd century B.C. There are also finds of the Moorish habituating here 11^th -12^th 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.   

www.davidcdagley.com

Euro Bounce

Euro-Bounce, First.

So I moved on out of Pamplona, Spain for the coast by bus to San Sebastian. I was hoping it wouldn’t be so busy but being only an hour or so away from Pamplona a lot of over flow went there and Bob Dylan was playing there the night before I arrived. Needless to say, it was packed. I walked into a hostel and the Aussie at the reception explained that they were full up but could hop on line and see what was available. He did and he found me Luca’s Hotel for 100 Euro. It was more than I wanted to spend but my choices were narrowing and the sun was setting. It’s what I equate to the desperate hour when you take what you get and suffer the financial consequences without remorse. Unfortunately the Aussie pointed me in the wrong direction and off I walked. I ran into an interesting foursome, one woman with her ex-husband with his wife and her new husband. I didn’t ask a lot of questions but they were in the mood to help me out since they were going towards the same direction for good food and they were right. The narrow streets of old town are literally packed with bars that serve food on the counter and copious amounts of alcohol of every variety under the Spanish sun. My hotel was on the same street on the 3^rdfloor overlooking the alley and the boisterous crowd singing and dancing in the street. Almost like clock work a mobile garbage can would be tipped over and emptied into a bigger one. The clank of glass was as common as the church bells around the corner.

Unfortunately Luca didn’t have room for me at ‘this’ location but he did have space in another hotel 10 minute walk away which was really 20 but so what. I walked with him and some young Spanish princess to the other hotel where I dropped my bags and proceeded out into the night to eat, drink, and try and find Mary. I ate; I drank and laughed with a pair from Australia. The woman lives in San Sebastian and her cousin and I ate, drank and they explained pretty much everything I would need to know for the next couple days.

I sound of the waves drew me to the beach and to another Bistro on the waters edge. I sat with two French men and had a lot of laughs about the combat surfing sessions they had gone through over the last four days. They also said that the waves weren’t as good as they had been during the last storm, still overhead but more of a wall than a break left or right. It was getting late and I made my way back to the hotel room and didn’t bother opening my bags since I was going back to the other hotel the next night. I actually slept a great sleep with waves crashing through my dreams. It reminded me of spending time in Coronado as a kid at my grandpa/ma’s place across from Star Park. When my parents would ditch me there I’d wake up in the morning and if I could hear the waves then I knew it was worth getting up and hustling to the beach because later there would be a stack of people. I would grab my fins and skateboard and press on down to north beach, which was at the south end and have waves virtually by myself. Growing up there off and on when my folks would take trips abroad and with my ma chucking me in the Hotel Del Coronado salt water pool as a 4 year old and swimming on my own by 6, this was a no brainer. San Sebastian took me back that far in an hour of sitting in the sand and watching the city light up the white lip of the waves, the shimmering curl and the anticipation of the inevitable crash and froth all on a seemingly eternal level. I just get to see and hear a fraction.

Tea in the morning is a staple for me as coffee is for others. Before the mob of people arrived on the scene I sat next to a group of four old men who never engaged me but knew I was within earshot and glanced periodically. They giggled and each told a story and all laughed, and repeat, and repeat. I didn’t understand much nor care. I have some other ways of understanding people that includes body language, hand gestures, and eyes. I didn’t need the details these guys had known each other since grade school or before.

I went back to the beach to watch the locals get up and go while the tide was right but it crowded up pretty quick and still the locals seemed to be able to pull off a lot of the waves where the outsiders kind of surfed scraps for awhile. And one kid, a great surfer on a little board played hard on the smaller inside waves with great cuts and a good edge or enjoyed launching over the top and playing it out.

I went for a swim and the water was more comfortable than Alaska water where you get hypothermia in about six minutes depending on your body mass and fat, give or take a few minutes or the water at Stinson Beach where I grew up with the Great Whites and Sea Lions just outside. We still shivered after being in the water after an hour. No this water at San Sebastian was comfortable but most of the folks surfing wore thin wetsuits, just enough, but for playing in the waves for half an hour, no problem.

I grabbed my gear and moved to the other hotel and showered and got ready to go explore the town. There are a lot of beautiful buildings and bridges to see in San Sebastian but the local people are the true highlight all generous, courteous, and genuine. Once all my stuff was in my second room I did a quick roam around old town and then on up to the statue of Jesus on the hill for a look about and wandered off to sort out my next move, Lisbon, Portugal. I went to the bus station and thought better after trying to talk to them both of us with raised shoulders and hands out not knowing what the other wanted. I moved on to the train station which was considerably closer and sorted out a ticket for the following day.

The night was loaded with singing and bottles clashing as they fell into bigger dumpsters. By the way, they take their recycling very seriously and there are at least three cans nearby at any point. The food at the bars is wonderful and there’s always a conversation going on. I walked into a sports bar and watched the Wimbledon tennis finals in London. Congrats. See you in Lisboa, Portugal. Lisbon, Portugal for those who don't know how 'they' spell it and only follow western English without knowing the difference.

www.davidcdagley.com