Over a 3 month period in 2018 we travelled to 13 countries. We began our trip flying from Durban, via Istanbul, to Lisbon where we spent a week.
We could easily have spent another week in this lovely city steeped in history in a country which is very proud of its exploratory past. Even though the Portuguese were not the earliest explorers they had a great influence in Africa, S America and Asia.
Lisbon is an easy city to get around with its excellent Metro Underground system which is not expensive. One advantage is that there is a discount for Seniors but accessing some of the stations may prove difficult for a person who has a disability or finds climbing stairs difficult.Our hotel was located in a residential area about a half km from the nearest Metro station. Unless one is young and fit it is advisable to take a taxi from the airport to any hotels similarly located as it is not easy getting luggage on and off trains and then carrying it upstairs to the street.
Our hotel in Lisbon. Our room was on the 4th floor at the far end
What was of great advantage to us was that there was a very good fruit and vegetable shop as well as a nice supermarket, a number of restaurants and a laundromat all within easy walking distance of our hotel. All 4 of these are so important today as most hotels and guest houses do not offer all meals if any and their laundry is expensive. At this hotel breakfast was offered and if we paid for the week in advance it was 5 Euros each. We took this option and were glad that we did as it was an excellent offering and it meant that we could continue with our favoured eating pattern when travelling – a good breakfast, fruit or a sandwich for lunch and something small at a restaurant or as a takeaway for supper. We carry water and biscuits with us during the day.
The fruit shopw which we went to every day is behind the yellow umbrellas. They also had alittle cafe
For our first full day in Lisbon we took the Metro to a Northern suburb, Oriente, as we had been told that it was very interesting. With the assistance of a security guard, they seem to know everything about the place where they are on duty, we purchased our tickets for a return trip. Unfortunately we misunderstood directions to change lines and inadvertently went out of the station which resulted in using 2 entry/exit allocations which we only discovered at the end of the day. Anyway, we arrived safely in Oriente and took an opportunity to admire the beautiful architecture of the Transport Hub for buses, trains and the Metro which was built in 1998.
Some of the beautiful architecture of the Oriente Transport Hub
Thereafter we could not see anything of much interest but the sign about the Oceanarium so once again we enlisted the assistance of a security person who directed us through the shopping mall and said that we would find it on the other side to the right. We walked through and got a real surprise as we came out the other end. We found ourselves in a very large plaza which was a popular tourist spot. The first booth we saw was Tourist Information where we learnt that this whole area, including the Oceanarium, shopping mall, a hands on science centre and the Transport Hub, had been developed for a World Science Conference of all branches of science in March 1998.
A flag for every nation which was representated at the Science Conference
We spent a wonderful day in Oriente arriving back at our hotel in the early evening but not without a minor hiccough. As I mentioned earlier, we had used our train ticket inadvertently at the change-over station and when we tried to put our tickets through the turnstile we were denied access. We went to the Ticket Office where a very helpful gentleman explained what had happened and told us that we had to purchase new tickets.
For more details of our day in Oriente see my next article.
