For my wedding anniversary this year, we went to Lisbon for a wonderful long weekend. Plusses included great sunshine, awesome views, beautiful architecture and landscapes, and a varied urban landscape.
Minuses included the food and the wind.
We got up around our normal time, had a nice breakfast and got everything together and headed out. As our bus turned the corner to pick us up, we realized we'd forgotten a magazine article J's mom had cut out on Things to Do in Lisbon. Sigh. We hopped on the bus and then took the train to Schiphol. At Schiphol it took about 30 minutes to check in. For some reason, with four counters open, it took each counter at least 20 minutes to process the five passengers in front of us. Wow.
Our flight was delightfully on time, and even the meal was pretty okay! Once in Lisbon we checked out purchasing the Lisboa-Card, which is basically a transit pass plus free or discounted entry into museums and other attractions. It would have cost us about €70 for the weekend. Or, for less than €25, we could buy a transit pass and just pay full price for anything we wanted to go into. Unless the weather is truly awful, we usually spend most of our time outside, so we opted for the transit pass.
I absolutely recommend seeing Lisbon on foot and by transit. We went all over the city, we walked through all kinds of neighbourhoods, and I even plucked (and attempted to eat) an orange from a tree in a park. (It was frighteningly sour!)
We did pay for two attractions. The first was the castle Sao Jorge. It was €7 to get in, and was probably a 45 minute walk from our hostel. Straight up! I'll try to find some pics to post as it was just gorgeous. J couldn't get too close to the edge due to his fear of heights, but I got him to take a picture of me where the wall protecting me from plunging to a messy and untimely death comes to just past my knees!!
The second was the Fado Museum, which I was interested in due to my general love of music. Unfortunately, I don't like Fado. :( Fado is folk music, so it's similar in many ways to folk music from around the world. What I didn't like is that it's become very stylized. Fado performers, at one point anyway, were required to perform only approved songs, wearing only approved outfits. Those rules were created to maintain a tradition, but it's too bad, in my view, that the music wasn't allowed to grow and shift and offer a blend of tradition and modern sound to keep the tradition alive. That museum cost €3.
Other than that, there was an amazing shoe store with the most beautiful collection of shoes I've ever seen, at fairly affordable prices. Unfortunately, as with every country in the world, beautiful shoes seem to be made for tiny women. A 6ft tall woman with size 10 (size 41) feet can choose between basic black or basic taupe. Thanks, shoe marketers of the world, for condemning me to fashion-less footwear.
J's favourite things about Lisbon, other than me being there with him, was the view from the castle, and travelling around looking at everything.
My favourite thing was (of course) J. And how surprising the city was. Turning a corner, taking a flight of stairs, a tram, or just looking out the window, was full of new layers and fun discoveries.
We also loved where we stayed! Central location, and cheap cheap cheap!
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
2010 Draws to a Close
I had a great ending to 2010!!
We booked a room for New Year's Eve at the Schloss Gnadenthal just over the border in Germany. J very nicely came to pick me up, and like the wise and wonderful husband he is, brought some snacks. He'd already packed for me, bringing what he thought was 2-3 times more clothing than one person could possibly wear during a one-night trip. It was just enough.
He'd programmed in the hotel into our GPS, and we were on our way from the parking lot outside my work. The hotel is about a two-hour drive away. About 30 minutes into the trip the GPS recommended a detour to avoid a traffic jam. J, in his manly wisdom, decided to ignore the GPS warning and continued on his merry way. One curve in the road past our detour-exit, we found the traffic jam. And stayed there for 45 minutes!! Fortunately, we found some very entertaining radio shows, with ridiculous Best-Of playlists. We entertained ourselves by quizzing each other and singing along.
One interesting thing about sitting in traffic is you really take note of the people beside you. There were a lot of cars full of people who weren't talking to each other at all. There were a lot of smokers, and a few guys blaring really bad music. Most interesting, however, was the guy who travelled with his budgie in a cage in the back seat. I wonder what he and his budgie had planned for New Year's. Speculation abounds.
It got really foggy about 30 minutes from our destination, so J slowed down and we just followed the lights ahead as we could barely see the lines on the road. Fortunately the worst of it only lasted about 15 minutes, and we were going through a populated area so there was some ambient light. We found our turnoff, which had been driven on but not properly ploughed, so it was quite icy. J is a great driver, but not as cautious as I am which drives me nuts as the passenger. I closed my eyes for much of this part of the journey.
We slid into a parking spot, grabbed our stuff, and walked around to the side of the building to the main entrance. As soon as we'd stepped out of the car, J commented on the silence. It was indeed vewy vewy quiet! As we waited to register, I noticed that even inside it was very quiet. I checked with the receptionist, and he confirmed that the restaurant was closed. Apparently most of the hotel had been booked for a silent meditation evening, and so all the normal noisiness, such as the restaurant, had been cancelled for the evening. Shhh.
All well and good, but it was just past 8pm and we wanted to have a nice dinner! So the receptionist called around and found a place for us to go to dinner - the Landhaus Waldschlosschen. It was very kind of him to help us out like that, and he advised us to hurry up as it would only be open until 9pm.
I'm going to have blog about our dinner experience another day... it was really something!
We booked a room for New Year's Eve at the Schloss Gnadenthal just over the border in Germany. J very nicely came to pick me up, and like the wise and wonderful husband he is, brought some snacks. He'd already packed for me, bringing what he thought was 2-3 times more clothing than one person could possibly wear during a one-night trip. It was just enough.
He'd programmed in the hotel into our GPS, and we were on our way from the parking lot outside my work. The hotel is about a two-hour drive away. About 30 minutes into the trip the GPS recommended a detour to avoid a traffic jam. J, in his manly wisdom, decided to ignore the GPS warning and continued on his merry way. One curve in the road past our detour-exit, we found the traffic jam. And stayed there for 45 minutes!! Fortunately, we found some very entertaining radio shows, with ridiculous Best-Of playlists. We entertained ourselves by quizzing each other and singing along.
One interesting thing about sitting in traffic is you really take note of the people beside you. There were a lot of cars full of people who weren't talking to each other at all. There were a lot of smokers, and a few guys blaring really bad music. Most interesting, however, was the guy who travelled with his budgie in a cage in the back seat. I wonder what he and his budgie had planned for New Year's. Speculation abounds.
It got really foggy about 30 minutes from our destination, so J slowed down and we just followed the lights ahead as we could barely see the lines on the road. Fortunately the worst of it only lasted about 15 minutes, and we were going through a populated area so there was some ambient light. We found our turnoff, which had been driven on but not properly ploughed, so it was quite icy. J is a great driver, but not as cautious as I am which drives me nuts as the passenger. I closed my eyes for much of this part of the journey.
We slid into a parking spot, grabbed our stuff, and walked around to the side of the building to the main entrance. As soon as we'd stepped out of the car, J commented on the silence. It was indeed vewy vewy quiet! As we waited to register, I noticed that even inside it was very quiet. I checked with the receptionist, and he confirmed that the restaurant was closed. Apparently most of the hotel had been booked for a silent meditation evening, and so all the normal noisiness, such as the restaurant, had been cancelled for the evening. Shhh.
All well and good, but it was just past 8pm and we wanted to have a nice dinner! So the receptionist called around and found a place for us to go to dinner - the Landhaus Waldschlosschen. It was very kind of him to help us out like that, and he advised us to hurry up as it would only be open until 9pm.
I'm going to have blog about our dinner experience another day... it was really something!
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