Portugal: A Pleasant End to a Long Journey in Lisbon

I had wanted to take a train from Madrid to Lisbon, the final stop on my around-the-world trip. Unfortunately, I learned that there is only one train per day between the two cities and it’s an overnight journey. That meant I would not see any of the countryside along the way. The upside was that, for me, it would be an adventure to take an overnight train, something I hadn’t done for more than 25 years when I had crisscrossed southern Africa by rail.

If I was going to be on a train for 10+ hours overnight, I had one non-negotiable condition: I would have to have a sleeping compartment. I couldn’t make a reservation for the train before leaving Denver because one cannot book Spanish trains more than 60 days in advance. Thus, about 58 days before my planned Madrid-Lisbon trip on October 10-11, I tried to book a seat on-line when I was in China. Every sleeping compartment seat (1^st class or 2^nd class; single or shared) was already booked. No way was I going to sit up all night in a regular coach and arrive in Lisbon feeling like a blurry-eyed zombie. So I went on line and found a seat on an Air Europa flight for only $121.50 from Madrid to Lisbon in early evening on 10 October 2012.

It was easy. The flight took only 1 hour and 20 minutes. The Metro in Madrid has a line to the airport and the Metro in Lisbon went from the airport to within about 5 blocks of my hotel (there was one change along the way). Throughout my trip, I had wanted to do the “right thing” environmentally by taking trains rather than flying but, in this case, convenience and comfort won out.

I had been long intrigued by Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, especially after having listened to an account of the city’s role in World War II (Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-45 by Neill Lochery, Blackstone Audio, 2011). If you’ve seen the movie, Casablanca, you may recall how refugees from German-occupied Europe were stuck in Morocco (ruled by the French Vichy government) and schemed to get exit visas in order to make their way to Lisbon, then on to the US, Canada, or the UK. Portugal was officially neutral during the war, and its clever ruler, Antonio Salazar, masterfully did business with both the Allies and Axis powers and fattened the Portuguese treasury in the process.

My little hotel (a third-story walk-up) was conveniently located near Rossio Square in the busy heart of the city. I have a very limited Portuguese vocabulary and had to remember to use Continental (rather than Brazilian) Portuguese pronunciations. For example, in Brazil “Ds” are pronounced like “J”s, so “good morning” is pronounced, Bon GEE-ah, whereas in Portugal the greeting is pronounced like it is spelled, Bon dia. Actually, I didn’t need to speak much Portuguese as most people I encountered in Lisbon spoke some English. And, if you read Spanish fairly well, the signs in Portuguese are rather easy to figure out.

Fountain in Rossio Square with the National Theater in the background

Park in the center of the Avenida da Liberdade in Baixa (lower town) at night

I was up early on the morning of the 11^thand spent the morning walking the Baixa (lower town) down to the Tejo estuary (an arm of the Atlantic Ocean). Much of Baixa was rebuilt after a massive earthquake destroyed most of Lisbon in 1755. After lunch, I climbed steep streets to the Alfama neighborhood and toured the 12^th Century Castelo de São Jorge (rebuilt in 1938). The views of the city and the estuary from the castle were fantastic. Crossing back through the Baixa, I climbed another hill to the Barrio Alto (high quarter). By late afternoon, my feet were worn out but managed to take me up one more steep street in the evening for a delicious dinner at a Nepalese restaurant.

The following morning, I took the Metro back to Portelo Airport located only about 4 miles north of Lisbon’s city center. My flight on TAP (Portugal’s national airline) left for Newark, New Jersey at 12:30PM. By evening I would finally be back in Denver.

Coming next: My hellish flights back to Denver

Architectural “samples”, Baixa 
 

Tourists climbing aboard one of Lisbon’s colorful old trolleys



Castelo de São Jorge above the Alfama neighborhood

View north from Castelo de São Jorge



View southwest from Alfama toward the Tejo River estuary

Left:  Narrow residential street in the Barrio Alto with the Ponte 25 de Abril (April 25^th Bridge) in the background.  Right:  Colorful residences in the Barrio Alto.

These Lisbon students were collecting money for a local hospital.  In return for the coins I donated, they sang me a Portuguese song and let me take their photo.