And off to Europe we go
06 October 2017 | Lisbon, Portugal
Nice and warm 70 to 80 no rain!
Our last blog entry found us finishing up our five month return to the U.S., birth of our granddaughter “Elyanna Grace” and spending time with friends and family. We found a great deal on a flight to Lisbon, Portugal for $880 one way for the both of us. We said our goodbyes and headed out on our next installment of our “Chrysalis Adventure”. Landing in Lisbon we jumped in a taxi and handed him a map showing the location of our room. After weaving through a rabbit’s warren of six story apartment buildings he said we were there. The address was very vague and we were not sure if we were in the right place. With darkness not far away we were a little concerned at being left in the middle of no where. Finally we had the taxi driver call our host and after a bit a man stuck his head out a window of an upper floor telling us in broken English the we were in the right place. Our accommodations were fine but when we went outside to try and find a place to eat we saw a lot of gang graffiti on the walls of the apartments surrounding us. We knew we would not be strolling at night. The next day we toured the neighborhood and found a bus into town. We could tell the folks in the neighbor were not used to seeing tourists in their ranks. We managed to get to the historic district and it did not disappoint. We realized there was much to see, so we decided to take in a tour bus ride to get the general layout of the town and find places we would like to spend some time exploring. We went down to the Belem district and viewed the famous Belem tower built in the 1400’s from which the sailor and explorer De Gama left to explore Africa and discover India. There is way too much history to try to tell here, I will try to throw in a little but try not bore you with a history lesson. It is said that Lisbon is named after Ulysses from the Greek tale in the book “Iliad” by Homer (uLISES, Lizsa, Lisboa, Lisbonne, Lisbon). Maybe, maybe not. The Romans were here for sure and some of their building still remains here. Many of world discoveries, to include the famous first circumnavigation of the world by Magellan, all started here in Lisbon. After the conquest of the many colonies in the new world and Africa, Lisbon became a very wealthy place and the architecture showed it. But that all changed with the great earthquake of 1755 which nearly destroyed the entire city. Much of the architecture that is seen in the central historic area dates to the massive rebuilding of Lisbon from this time. Ok Ok enough with the history lesson for the moment. Our room was only booked for two nights so the next day we figured we better work on a more permanent accommodation. The room was booked for the rest of the month and not available so we took to the internet to find a new temporary home. We ended up finding a room about 45 minutes out of town, by bus, in the country, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. We had to do a little studying to learn to use to extensive mass transportation offered in Lisbon, subway, buses, trains, trams and trolleys. We got lost at one point and we were getting a little concerned as we did not want to return to our “cozy” neighborhood in the dark. We finally got off the buses and jumped in a taxi. We tried to show the driver how to get to our place but he did not speak any English nor did he have GPS. After he got lost and had to ask for help finding our place from a passing truck he finally got us home safe and sound, always an adventure. Once we got the route figured out it was not too difficult to find our way. We loaded up our back packs walked to the subway, (we kinda stand out) and onto a bus, got off at the giant strawberry, that our new host told to look for, and voila we were home. Our new digs were in another apartment, living with our host Raquel. Raquel speaks English and a few other languages. She has been great telling us a little about the area, taking us to the market and offered to take us to the beach and the mountains one day. So at this point we have been being a little lazy drinking coffee until afternoon, then taking a walk to explore the neighborhood. We will take a trip into Lisbon in the next day or two and visit one or two sites not wanting to have to hurry from site to site. Stay tuned as we explore more of Lisbon and other areas in Portugal then on to Spain!