Month: April 2022

And off we go, a quick train ride to Belem and then cappuccinos by the Tagus River. On to the National Coach Museum just across the street.  What’s the first thought that crosses your mind when you hear stuff like Coach Museum? Uh huh, be honest. Musty stables with disintegrating covered wagons? Wells Fargo Pony…

Before we traveled, I made sure to bring an umbrella; I would have been better served if I had brought sunscreen. Today it got up to 27 degrees Celsius. Flush-faced Northern Europeans, sun hats, shorts. We lit out for the wide river promenade in Bélem. Cappuccinos at a cafe near a Portuguese-style RV park… …then…

Despite the programmed metro strike this morning, the above ground trains were operating as normal. We caught a train to Cascais, barely a 30 minute ride along the coast. Lisbon sits on the Tagus river which opens to the Atlantic. Cascais sits on the Atlantic. On the map below, the blue circle is where our…

With the weather predicted to be in the mid-seventies, we figured it would be good day to head west along the coast and scope out the resort town of Cascais. It’s an easy train ride, and we went early enough to avoid fighting for seats. (By early, I mean any time before noon. After twelve,…

Pretty Porcelain Pottery. But that’s just plain silly. And i didn’t even have my daily goblet of sangria. Oh, maybe THAT’S the problem. Today’s Target: Jardim Bordallo Pinheiro Route: Bus 706 to Cais do Sodre, change to Metro green line to Campo Grande. I was staring out the window on the bus, not really paying…

Today was supposed to be without purpose, laid back and relaxing. No hike to any hilltop fortress, no wandering cold empty palatial hallways, no room-by-room exploration of museum antiquities, nope, just roving the crooked streets of Lisbon taking advantage of sunny seventy-degree weather. Then Ella mentioned something about porcelain sculptures near the Museo de Lisbon…

at Rua da Esperança 16? We wondered leerily as the cab dropped us off at our new address in Lisbon a few days ago. A door that could use some love, a couple of guys feeling no pain leaning against the wall of the bathroom-sized bar next door. We buzz #2 as instructed. A woman…

We easily catch the 714 bus to the Rossio station where all trains lead to Sintra. We step off the train 45 minutes later, into the crisp mountain air of Sintra, a whopping 375 ft above sea level. But there’s hills, and greenery and vistas so it feels like a mountain. And like the tourist…

Sintra, famous for its picturesque hilltop palace, was a short train ride north. Since it’s a major tourist destination, and since the memories of the roped-off interiors of the Pizzi Palace merge with countless roped-off dining rooms and drawing rooms and bedrooms of the Schoenbrunn Palace, etc., we chose not to go inside and tour…

Museu de arts Antigua (or this is Ella’s idea of hell) Long hallways with room after room, alcove after alcove of murky paintings depicting adoration, sainthood and torture to those who don’t believe. Grubb will joke about my dislike of this, what I would call, oppressive art. He loves this stuff. The quantity of these…