23 - 25 February: London to Lisbon

We finished our time in London pretty much as we spent it: being sociable and avoiding the rain. I had brunch with Linda. We had a wonderful a “bon voyage” dinner at Gareth’s & Fabi’s. They’re off to Buenos Aires on Wednesday.

Our travel day was counter-intuitively stress free, but also very long: overrunning engineering works impacted the trains to Crawley; morning fog delayed our ‘plane by nearly 2 hours; the perfunctory termination of our metro train in/under Lisbon mid-journey. But, we had nothing else to do and we were warm and dry. We got to our hotel by 5pm, rather than 1pm. On the positive side, we have already used all 4 metro lines in the city, due to the unexpected rerouting.

Our hotel is on the Marqués de Pombal transport hub (metro, bus & interchanges for both), part of the Imperial drag of the City: from the ceremonial waterfront of the Praça de Comercio; along the vast, palm-tree-lined Avenida da Liberdad and on up the hill into Parque Eduardo VII; culminating in the formal gardens and palaces on the crest of the hill (now the University, High Court, Cultural Centre etc.). That’s for tomorrow. Today, we strolled to the River Tagus Estuary and the old town/port of Alfama.

Alfama is tourist-central, and they do it well. Think – Montmatre in Paris, but with a stonking Norman-style castle à la Windsor atop the hill and sea-view terraces all the way down. Castelo Sao Jorge commands both the sea and the town with magnificent views. Strategically important for millennia, the castle grounds are an active archeological site with Iron Age, Moorish and Medieval periods under examination. The gardens ring with the boom of peacocks (tame, but feisty) and the soft, utterly Mediterranean “hoo-hoo” of collared doves hidden in the olive and cyprus trees…

The gardens home a rather lovely statue of a graceful, if chunky, maiden by Antonio Duarte. We came around the corner to find a school group of teenage boys giggling, pointing and posing with tongues out, grabby hands… Some things are universal!

We walked some of the walls. Having come down twice on my behind (again! See video of Greenwich in London Week 1 folder), I let Carey climb the tower by himself!

We then strolled down to the shoreline, pausing for a thick coffee and delicious pastèls da bacalhau (salted cod) and pastèls da nata at a roadside café. We ordered. Then I remembered that we didn’t have cash. I went in to check/cancel. Between various languages, gestures, we figured out she wanted my order for 11 Euro, so card was “ok”. Negotiation over, we had a lovely, tasty sit at an outside table. When I went in to pay, she was telling a German she didn’t take card. She flashed me a warning look, so I watched, respectfully silent. The flustered man paid over 12 Euro for 2 bottles of water and a small cake AND apologised for “not having enough” (!). Caveat emptor, I guess…