Jun 18, 2019
Lisbon, Portugal
Not taken today but the metro station is at my back and that salmon and white colored building on the right was the location of our Airbnb here. Perfectly suited to enjoying Porto.
We had no problems getting from our apartment to the train station by metro. Door to door it only took 15 minutes. We were early which is always better than being late. As it was a nice day we went up to the platform to wait for our train which ended up being about 20 minutes late but we still got to Lisbon on time.
Photo taken by a lovely couple from Texas. We had such a wonderful chat as we waited for the train. Please do send me that follow up email as we would love to visit you down there in Texas some year in our RV.
Relaxing on the train. The current fare for travel on this train from Porto to Lisboa is 30EUR. By booking 3 -4 months in advance we each only paid a promotional fare of 9.5EUR/10.90USD/14.60CAD.
We had about 6 – 10 stops at small towns along the way.
We spent the 3 & 1/4 hour trip working on what else but the blog and I finished an e – novel I had ordered from our library back home.
We took a taxi to our Airbnb. Click here to see the details of our apartment. Again it is all about location and this is about as central as it gets. This is our most expensive at $167.00CAD/125.00USD. Once we get back I will work a few figures out for you such as our average cost per night, etc. Our host was there to greet us and provided a wealth of information about things we needed to know about Lisbon and kindly had a bottle of wine for us as well as water, soft drinks and beer in the fridge.
We are on the 6th floor which is the top of the building and this is our view towards the Tagus River.
Looking the other way.
Once we unpacked ( last time until we get home ) we headed out the door looking for lunch and a grocery store. We found both and dropped a few bottles of wine off at the apartment and off we went again. We ended up covering a good deal of the area and were surprised at how much we did in half of a day. Initial impressions are that Lisbon is a huge city at around 506,000 while Porto has a population of just over 215,000. Porto is a clean city and we find Lisboa to be littered with scraps of paper and garbage and ever so many cigarette butts. A city of smokers.
The uneven cobblestone roads.
The very smooth and slippery limestone street, even more dangerous when wet.
The Elevator de Santa Justa is a major tourist attraction that people line up for over an hour to be whisked to the ‘almost’ top for 5.5 Euro. Then you have to pay another 1.5 Euro to get a ticket to climb the final two staircases up. The view is the same.
Lisbon is called the city of seven hills. While that may be true I managed to find many smaller hills every few yards that left me huffing and puffing. You walk up a ways, sometimes at a reasonable angle but not always, then you might get lucky and be able to walk a bit on a flat surface before you head downhill and then start uphill yet again.
Some of the scenery.
A very old cafe from where espresso was first introduced to Lisbon. It was not well received as it was too bitter. The owner had spent a great deal of money importing the machinery, etc so had to come up with a new plan. He put up a sign indicating that this new drink needed to be drunk with sugar. Very quickly it became popular as the Portuguese like sweet things.
This is called a Tuk Tuk and they are all over the place in different sizes and colors. Each driver decorates their machine in order to stand out from the others. They all claim to be the best at offering you the perfect site seeing tour.
The Convento do Carmo, from which there is a free stairway up to a walkway to the top of the Elevador de Santa Justa and from there you can pay that 1.5 Euro if you want to go to the very top. Point is, you don’t have to wait in line for an hour to get up nor do you have pay that 5.5 Euro each to get there. My research saved us 11 Euro.
The free walkway across.
For that extra 1.5EUR you can climb this staircase up.
There is a mesh screen across from which you can easily look through as well as take photos as the following show.
There is a castle up there. More to that story next post.
Finally, a sunset shot.
While patio restaurants were plentiful in Porto, here you have to find them. In certain touristic areas they are plentiful along with high prices and not quality cuisine. Turns out that many restaurants here are down a tiny alley which opens onto a square that holds two to four restaurants. By the time we found one, it had become very cool plus I was tired so we sat for a drink while we waited for two medium sized pizzas to be prepared. I do believe that they were up there with some of the best we have enjoyed over the years and now we have leftovers for another meal.
I feel like we put in a full day from 4PM on 🙄
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Ah, Lisbon – one of my favorite cities in the world. There was no lineup when we went on the elevator but the price was considerably cheaper a few years ago too. Did you see the archaeological remains of the convent Carmo? That was one of our favorite things in Lisbon, along with the view from the Castle. We walked up and down to the castle but I’ve heard there are easier ways up. Enjoy that lovely city!
Lisbon was one if our stops on our transatlantic cruise last month. 8 hours was not nearly enough time there so we will be going back. Enjoy your last few days!
Contessa and Collin, you are seeing and experiencing so much this trip that I am in awe at all the pictures you are sharing. What a wonderful vacation you are having and now I appreciate all the research you did to make that happen. I hope you will share more of the fotos you took when back home. Enjoy the ambiance, food and wine, too.
You did manage to see a lot of things in the short time you were in Lisbon.
Definitely can’t expect all cities to be clean.
Be Safe and Enjoy Lisbon.
It’s about time.