Lisbon and the Algarve

The hotel at Lisbon, Martinhal Lisbon Chiado was more of a family hotel and we had parking for the rental car arranged which turned out to be in a secure building just a couple of blocks away, or in Lisbon terms downhill, turn left, then uphill, then turn right then downhill again. First door into the parking was actually 2 parking levels higher than the 2nd door I came out about 100 metres down the same street which should give you an idea of the angle of the street.

We went out for a walk, although the weather was a bit wet, we ended up buying small umbrellas which were handy to have. I did go for a long walk in the rain at one stage for a couple of hours, it was torrential with rivers running down the steep streets. My passport, money, etc and me got soaked but I did get to see a few places with less people around.

I had arranged for a Tuk-Tuk tour with Silvia and she turned up and we went off on about a 2 hour tour of Lisbon. She was extremely informative and knowledgeable about her city which made it a lot of fun.

A couple of the highlights was the Pasteis de Belem and the Monument of the Discoveries which I had a photo of my bus, Woftam beside from 1983. The famous custard tarts from Pasteis de Belem when warm were fantastic and we did find the similar tarts all over Portugal but due to patents or Copyright or something they are all called Pastel de Nata. We did get a kitchen tour of the bakery and they make about 25 thousand a day all hand made.

The number 28 tram in Lisbon connects Martim Moniz with Campo Ourique, and passes through the popular tourist districts of Alfama, Baixa, Estrela and Graca. We saw the line of people for it and decided against doing that.

We later did the Hills Tramcar Tour which took us to a lot of good places although it was not a hop on/off tram so we never got back to any of the places we liked. Some of the closer places we managed to walk to but even getting up to 20,000 steps a day and a lot of hills made for a long hard day with plenty of rest stops and coffee stops made it ok. Europe like their SMALL strong coffees, we tended to go to Starbucks and get a decent sized coffee.

After about 45 min standing in line we went up the Santa Justa Lift which gave a good view of the city. It was an old lift built in the very early 1900’s after just over 20 years of planning. At the top we could walk down a few steps and back to the hotel down some narrow streets instead of optiong to go back down the lift to where we began.

On departing Lisbon we drove over the 25 de Abril Bridge, a suspension bridge designed and looks similar to the one in San Francisco. We headed down towards Sagres, the area surrounding it had changed a lot to my previous times there in the early 80’s.

The Sagres lighthouse was closed to walk around due to repairs or renovation inside but about a kilometer of cars parked to go see it seemed to make no difference. Near the lighthouse was a heap of food trucks and people selling various things and a lot of people walking around the edge of the cliffs for different views and photos.

From Sagres we headed to our accommodation near Albufeira. It turned out to be a bit expensive for what we ended up with but it had a great outlook out to sea and the bay.

The following day we left Portugal and headed for Seville, Spain. With an hour time change we were not sure about the ferry. I had opted to take the ferry across to Spain as we used to do with Top Deck instead of staying on the motorway and crossing the bridge which had been completed in 1991. It is the Guadiana International Bridge and crosses the Guadiana River connecting southern Spain (town of Ayamonte) and Portugal (town of Castro Marim). It is the southernmost land crossing on the Portugal–Spain border.

We waited quite a while on the ferry which was not the same one we used to use. The guy in the ticket office arrived just as the ferry from Spain did and a quick sale of tickets and only accepting cash and we were on the ferry and off to Spain again.