Happy to be Traveling

This morning when I stepped out to get coffee from the kiosk of my dreams, the streets were damp and the moisture in the air spritzed me intermittently. I thought, “This is it, Lisbon as advertised, rain soon to follow.” Ella, on the other hand, chooses to make weather predictions from reports on her cell,…

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…

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

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…

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…

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

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…

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…

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…

A little dazed but here we are. Albuquerque to Denver to Newark to Lisbon.