We started with a morning walk through mist-like moisture. Not quite rain. Up (despite Google’s continued assurances that the route was “mostly flat”) to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, which I’m leaving to Grubb to enthrall you with. Estufa Fria. Released from stodgy art…no I shouldn’t say that…there were some beautiful tiles, rugs, tapestries and fine…
Category: Puttering through Portugal
Tower and Monastery Photos
Photos from the Torre de Belém (Tower of Belem) https://photos.app.goo.gl/8NCdRCYzoJ7jpWaT8 Photos from the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Monastery) https://photos.app.goo.gl/HMMC9oEBPanFmJ4q6
The Monk Loses Face
Okay, we made it to the Bélem tower around noon. (Third day in a row without rain. Spooky.) Take your regulation castle and subtract everything but one of the towers and you’ve got a good idea of where we ended up climbing the spiral stone staircase to step around the obligatory cannons poking their barrels…
Me vs Machine
First up this morning…purchase a Viva Viagem card. This is the magic way to ride public transport in Lisbon. One can ride the metro, trams and busses by waving one’s card at the fare reader. Only sold at metro stations. There was a bit of a tussle between Me and the card-selling Machine. It politely declined…
Lisbon Photos
Uploading photos to a blog post is painful so we limit to a select few. For those of you who like to see more photos, we will create google photo albums and post the link. Here is a selection of photos from today. lots of roof top views. https://photos.app.goo.gl/Qo29nN5Pavz52gju7
What do you call a half zombie / half human?
I dunno, I welcome all suggestions. That’s what we felt like this morning. Halfway back from zombification. We managed to clear the cobwebs and were ready to forage for some caloric and caffeine input by 10am. The coffee kiosk across the street was just opening. Our timing was spot on. But first, we walked at…
The return of the monk
First day in, we trekked over to a famous indoor market that was on the waterfront. Unlike the Sawmill Market in Albuquerque it sported cooking show chefs dolling out precious portions of highly decorated seafood (except for one tiny booth offering octopus hotdogs, which intrigued me but at 12 Euros and a long line, I…
Two old zombies arrive
Zombified, we emerged from the Lisbon airport Passport control into a wonderfully bright, sunny morning and took the easiest option for getting to our Airbnb. We hailed a taxi, which zipped in and out of traffic, did complex turns through 6-way intersections and finally dropped us on Praça das Flores, a narrow single lane road…
Touch down, Lisbon
A little dazed but here we are. Albuquerque to Denver to Newark to Lisbon.
Blast off…NOT!
(Ella) We are on a one day delay. Our flight out of ABQ was cancelled after a two hour delay while a mechanic tried to fix the hydraulics. Couldn’t be done. By then, we were toast for getting out of Albuquerque and getting somewhere that would lead us to Lisbon. We spent the next 4…
72
Grubb is 72 years old today. Happy birthday! Yay. Plus it’s our anniversary today (but not our 72nd). We decided we’d defer celebrations until we arrive in Portugal and then we will treat ourselves to a month’s vacation. It’s now 72 hours prior to departure. We are now allowed to get all the documents uploaded…
Counting down
6 days to go. I am busily looking up the latest travel apps, keeping my eye on Covid stats in Portugal (looking very good – no sign of another surge yet), reading about the history of Portugal (well, Grubb is doing the reading but he tells me stuff), learning some Portuguese (I might learn some…
Are we travel ready?
Kinda. Pretty much. It’s been a minute though. I took the opportunity to buy a new rain jacket (one can’t have too many rain jackets in New Mexico, ho, ho). Grubb splurged on a lighter-weight, smaller suitcase. Out comes the travel bin full of goodies. Neck pillows of all shapes and sizes, mini first aid…
The Blue Line
In Lisbon we will be traveling a lot on the Blue Line Metro. Hop on! Our first stop could be the Gulbenkian Museum Although Ella may weigh in with a few stops first. I’ll bet she’s thinking of a peek at the History of Lisbon tunnel right next to a public toilet. Or a…
Where to go in Portugal?
Previously mentioned, we’ve never been to Portugal. We love a mix of city and rural, art and architecture, history, natural beauty and just plain old wandering. If you’ve been to Portugal or have heard great things about some particular area or place or food or … well, whatever… please leave a comment. We started reading…