Lisbon Trip Report - Heat, Tired Feet and good Seafood Meat

I took 699 pictures. Dawn took close to 200. This was a new record for us on a four day trip and should indicate a couple of things; 1) Lisbon is a picteresque place with many interesting sites and features, and 2) The weather was nice enough to pull the camera out often.

Lisbon is a crazy place compared to most European cities we've visited. It's big, crowded, dirty, hot, stinky, and the traffic is absolutely bonkers. But, we also found this city to be vibrant, friendly, fun-loving, beautiful and a great place to visit. Not once did we ever feel we were in any danger or threatened from the numerous beggars and drug pushers in the city. More than anything, they added a bit of character to the place due to their comfort with who they are and what they were doing. They were part of the scenery, and in a way, part of the charm of the city, mixing in perfectly with the busloads of funnily-dressed geriatric tourists from all over the world.

If anything, Lisbon is a city full of contrasts. I've never seen a place where people are so polar-opposite in their actions. The traffic and drivers in the city are crazy-aggressive, making full use of the horn on the steering column. I read a lot about Fado music while in Lisbon and how it is the heart and soul of the area, but to me, the honking of car horns is more representative of this city's soundtrack. On the other hand, when they aren't in their cars acting out scenes from 'Mad Max', the Portugese people are one of the most laid-back people I have ever met. Rarely are solid plans made - things just happen when they happen. I had a tough time grasping this concept at first, but slowly began to appreciate this outlook on life. It's such a drastic change from the go-go-go of America and even Germany.

If I only had three words to describe our first day in the city it would be these: Hot, Walk and Tired. We landed in Lisbon at 8am after a 3 hour flight from Munich and were at our hotel by 9:15am. Our hotel was located right off of Liberdade Street close to the central congregation point for the city tour buses and this is where we headed after getting checked in. One of the first things we always do when visiting a new city is buy a ticket for the Hop on / Hop off tour bus so that we can get better acquainted with the sites in the city. Usually, this works out well and we enjoy the tour. This was not one of those times, however. As we later found out, Lisbon is a place built for touring on foot or by the much more intiment street and cable cars. The Ho-Ho bus here just wasn't up to par and we ended up hopping off it at the Praca do Imperio Palace, the farthest point away from where we started the tour. We thought a nice, leisurely stroll down the waterfront would be great from here and that we could hop back on the bus further down the road as we made our way back. Well, this didn't quite work out either. It had gotten hot - like 100 degree hot by the time we embarked on our foot journey. The waterfront also turned out to be not-so-scenic and more industrial than anything. After about a mile of walking, we tried to find a bus stop so we could get back downtown, but this proved to be impossible due to a really crappy map they provided us and due to the fact that the roads along the water front are a mess and make no sense what-so-ever.

We eventually did get off of the waterfront, ending up on a narrow street in the Bairro Alto neighborhood. At this point, Dawn's feet were killing her and she was desparately in need of some new shoes. Her flip flops just weren't cutting it (well, they were cutting her feet) with all of the walking we were doing. Luckily, after a few blocks, we stumbled upon a family-run shoe store. At this point in time, we were both a bit disenchanted with our experience in Lisbon. I would have to say the visit to the shoe store is where things turned the corner, however. The people in the store were extra friendly and went above and beyond to find a pair of sandals for Dawn that would be comfortable and fit her needs. With new sandals and some new-found energy and optimism, we left the store and continued on with our journey. The rest of the day found us walking the narrow streets and alleys of Alfama where we visited the Se de Lisboa Cathedral and then Castelo de Sao Jorge. We also witnessed an attempted bag-snatching which was foiled by some street workers, were asked for money from a 20-something who claimed to be from Prague and hungry (sorry buddy!) and were approached by a guy selling the cheapest looking watches I've ever seen.

Our day ended by us getting lost on our way back to our hotel, eventually finding it in the most roundabout way imageinable. We ended up eating a very late dinner at our hotel, then collapsing on our bed. It was a very long day that started at 2:30am and found us walking for around 11 hours in the blistering sun. Still, it was a gratifying day and very memorable.

Part II of the trip will be posted soon. In the meantime, you can check the pictures out from the trip HERE and pictures of Dawn and I on the trip HERE

We're off to Lisbon, Portugal for the weekend

We've been so busy with prepping for the wedding, work and life in general that we really haven't had much time to do any research on this place called.....Portugal. I think it's south of us, but I'm not really sure. Does anyone else ever get annoyed when someone says something like "We went down to Canada this weekend and it was great!"? DOWN? If you're in the US, it almost certainly is UP in most cases or OVER if you live in Alaska. I swear, I hear Americans at work doing this all the time and it bugs the crap out of me. The geographer in me, I suppose. But anyway, I digress. I do believe we will be going DOWN to Portugal and luckily we are meeting up with our good friends Johannes and Carla. Johannes is a British-educated German (meaning he speaks English better than I do) and Carla is his lovely trilingual British-educated Portugese wife. They met at University in England, and I met them when we all lived in the same building in Weiden. We will be leaning heavily on them for guidance on what to see, what to do, how to avoid the pickpockets that I've read so much about and most importantly, the best places to eat. And, if I'm physically feeling up to it, a good surfing beach in and around Lisbon.

So, we may not know much about this place now, but we'll assuredly be experts when we get back late Monday night. We'll make sure to take plenty of pictures, as always. Enjoy your weekend! Alegrias!