Kiwi Roaming

We arrived in Lisbon on the bus from the Algarve late in the day Monday. A very cheap uber to our apartment and wee walk up the very steep street then two flights of stairs and we were into our apartment. Lis Apartments are spacious, modern and our top floor one has a wee balcony on the roof top too, which is where the washing machine lives. After settling in we headed back out for a wee reconnoiter, dinner and supermarket visit.

We are staying in the neighbourhood of Pena, just outside the old / tourist parts of town, 15 minutes walk to the Rossio Station and 30 minutes to the waterfront. It is a really hilly area and our street is pretty typical – narrow, steep, poorly kept with lots of rubbish. It was a lovely warm evening for wandering around, there were hundreds of young men (Indian / Pakistani maybe) in the squares, outside the kebab shops and bars, sitting and standing around talking in groups. We had pre-selected a lovely restaurant Josephine for our dinner and had two yummy burgers with a glass of wine. Yum and lovely sitting outside on the square watching the world go by.

The forecast for the week was not looking good with the first day looking like the best weather so we got up early and headed off to catch a train to Sintra – blog on that day can be found here – that was Tuesday. I should mention that Lisbon as we call it is actually Lisboa, another interesting translation thing.

We decided to walk back from the Rossio station after our Sintra trip via a different route (and so we could go to the Pingo instead of the Lidl which disappointed us) and discovered some of the many flights of stairs in Lisboa. We’ve stayed in cities with stairs before but Lisboa is pretty extreme. We’ve seen some escalators but they were not running and being used as stairs. The Funiculars and Lifts operated by the city are also not running right now after the tragic accident in September.

Wednesday’s forecast was for 100% chance of rain later in the day then from 9pm an adverse weather warning, and it was 100% correct! we got up early to call Marian, showered and headed out to explore Lisboa. I think we had walked about 15 mins before the rain started, and it really really rained, we were soaked. Since we were wet already we carried on, walked through the tourist streets, looked at some of the sites then headed down to the waterfront. That was a mistake, there it was like a full on Wellington Southerly with horizontal rain and so much wind. It really wasn’t pleasant so after only 2 hours out we headed home via a Bom Dia where we purchased a 4 pack of pastel de nata’s (yum) and headed home to watch a Death in Paradise marathon on the Crime channel (in English).

That night we had a full on storm over Lisboa for 6+ hours, 53mm of rain fell, thunder and lightning all night. The forecast looked like the rain would ease up slightly about 10am so we popped our raincoats on and headed out only to be soaked with a massive downpour 4 minutes later, luckily after this it pretty much held off until we retuned home at the end of the day.

I’d describe Lisboa as a more spread out, less intense version of Porto. Lots of tiled buildings, beautiful paving and interesting wee alleyways. With the lifts and funicular out of commission we decided to do our own walking tour – Pink Street, Green Street, lots of squares and monuments, the Cathedral, and various viewing points. We stopped into the Time Out food court for lunch which was unreal, massive, chocker and after the terrible Time Out in Barcelona, had wonderfully diverse food choices. We selected a baked cod with potatoes dish, some chicken skewers, vegan gyoza and I had a yummy cocktail (Steve a Superbok). If the weather had been better would have loved a sit outside in Green Street.

We took a different route back to the apartment, up past the cathedral towards the castle (which we could see from our bedroom) then down through more residential streets. We decided we’d seen enough castles so didn’t go right to the castle here, same with the Cathedral we didn’t go inside. As Steve put it “Lisbon is very different once you are out of the tourist areas”. The streets are poorly maintained, buildings too, and there is so much construction going on with cranes everywhere.

There were hundreds of people queuing for the tourist trams so we were pleased to have opted for a walking day instead but with the weather as it was and the steepness of the streets here you can totally understand why a tram would be a good option to explore. I should mention that like Porto there are tuktuks and electric vintage car tours everywhere, also a range of site seeing bus options. We stopped and watched a tram / bus traffic jam being untangled at one stage which was fascinating and held up all of the traffic for ages.

The city is transforming for Christmas and the Christmas market in the process of being constructed near the train station. There are also many many gorgeous wee restaurants, tiny shops and wonderful looking ceramic galleries. Sadly we are at max capacity luggage wise so I couldn’t buy any of the many very pretty things.

Our time in Lisboa marred by the rain meant the didn’t do or see as much as we’d hoped, but we liked the vibe and enjoyed the yummy food.