From the Algarve we came descending on Lisbon like dark angels sent from Hell to punish mankind. Then we hit the Lisbon metro system and realised we were too late.
All of which is an overblown way of saying we caught a bus from Lagos to Lisbon and then took a train to our hotel. In actual fact the Lisbon metro system deposited us within camel spit of our hotel with perfect efficiency. Too much efficiency actually as it turned out the hotel wasn’t ready for us when we arrived. After a tense negotiating period they permitted us leave again as long as we left our luggage there as hostages in case we found a nicer hotel while wandering around.
Once we bid a teary farewell to our suitcases now trembling under the hotel’s brutal yoke we set off into Lisbon. Lisbon has a lot of up and down. They claim the city is built on seven hills like Rome. I know the Romans did a lot of impressive things but copying their decision to situate a major city on the lumpiest ground available is not necessarily the best thing to emulate them in.
Despite this the Lisbites built their city and when a combined earthquake, fire and flood destroyed it rather than take the hint they rebuilt it in basically the same place. Thus parts of Lisbon have a well organised grid pattern and other parts er, don’t. Our hotel sat roughly on the border.
The orientation walk purported to give us a glimpse of some of the various neighbourhoods of Lisbon but rapidly turned into an orgy of pastry and warm custard (no not that sort of an orgy, although…). Lisbon is home to the Portuguese tart which I have to say tastes vastly better than its shabby Australian equivalent.
Shedding pastry crumbs and with our fingers sticking to each other, cardboard containers and on occasion walls and passing vehicles we stumbled on. Always ahead of us was the unobtainable perfect Portuguese tart teasing us and leading us deeper into Lisbon. Finally we stopped and ungummed our mouths long enough to ask where we were. Our guide who had completely lost patience with the pastry covered , custard smeared freaks she had been landed with pointed out that we were back at our hotel and that any of us who survived the inevitable type 2 diabetes might like to try a Fado performance that evening.
Fado is a Portuguese art and consists of two guys with guitars trying to drown out the manic depressive who is using song to work through some emotional issues. We decided we did want to try it and climbed quite a number of stairs in order to do so. The food was good and the Fado appropriately heartfelt and waily. We all agreed it was very good, then we went in search of more Portuguese tarts. Along the way we encountered street performers and what claimed to be the world’s oldest continuously operating bookstore. I bought a book and some very bad coffee there while my companions trembled and suffered custard withdrawal symptoms. Eventually we returned to the hotel while we could still fit through the door.
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