Daytrip Lisbon
16th June went to Lisbon/Lisboa (pronounced Lzhboa) on the train - only 12 days after we had arrived at Cascais! Firstly we went to a chandlery we had been told about at Belem (pronounced Beleng), as eventually Nigel had given in and was looking for a solar panel! After some long debate with one staff member who appeared to have the answer to everything but in fact just said yes a lot without actually understanding much at all, we spoke to a girl who was very helpful. Most of our technical questions were answered by scrutinising the manual. We decided to buy the panel but asked if they could get another to make a pair - sadly after they had tried several avenues it was not possible in any short timescale.
We walked around the monument to the Discoveries and then visited the Maritime Museum, this was very good with Dan as everything was sealed behind glass cases, and there were copious amounts of model ships and other items to talk about. Explanations were in Portuguese and English.
We went for lunch at a local café which was considerably cheaper than the museum cafeteria!
We caught a bus into the centre of Lisbon but got off in the wrong place so had to get another one, then we got on tram no. 28 which is supposed to be a very good route to see a lot of the city. It was the first time on a tram for all of us, at first there was nothing much to see, but as we got to the narrow streets of the Alfama district, an old part of town with very narrow streets, it was certainly interesting, the tram went through roads which you wouldn’t think it could! We were asked to get out at the end of the route near to some very novel fountains in a modern part of the town, which we played around in for a while. Then we got a coffee and a coke in a nearby street before proceeding back towards the river front and through Rua Agusta, a large pedestrianised shopping street full of tourists and artists and buskers and football fans. When we got to the large square at the end we got on a bus back to Belem where we collected the solar panel. We walked on and got a closer view of the Belem tower, and later got to a
fountain which was switched off, but it was surrounded by a large shallow pool. There were a number of people swimming in it (gypsies as it turned out) and Daniel wanted to go in, he had been asking that sort of thing all day and this place was off the beaten track so we agreed, he had a whale of a time “swimming” and jumping in, and playing with two older children. Later two dogs were also swimming, we had a good chat to their owner who was well versed in English. She said that in a few days the whole area would be camped out by gypsies, they came every year at about the same time, and stayed for a couple of weeks until they were moved on.
Got the train back and ate at McDonalds - very cheap.