Day 42: Lisbon, Portugal
I woke up this morning to the beautiful city of Lisbon right outside our window. I didn't know much about Lisbon before today so I didn't really have any expectations going in. My first glimpse of the city had me excited for the day.
We had sailed a little ways up the Tagus River to get to our port. That's one of the advantages of a smaller cruise ship. Stepping out onto the Promenade Deck I could see the red bridge we must have passed under coming into port, and the Christ the King monument on the adjacent hill. More about those later.
Coincidentally, Lisbon is the city that the explorer Vasco da Gama sailed from on his epic journey in the 15th century to be the first to reach India by sea, thus connecting the West and the East. It's also the new name of our cruise ship. An appropriate final excursion port for us.
Lisbon is a gorgeous hillside city that is known for its tile which you see just about everywhere. Even in the sidewalks. Lynda used to own a very upscale tile store in Scottsdale, Arizona, and even she said how expensive and beautiful the handmade tile from Portugal is. We weren't going to be spending any time in Lisbon itself today, but I could see already that it is a place I'd love to come back to for a longer stay.
We chose the Sintra, Guincho, & Cascais excursion today, three towns not too far away from Lisbon. Sintra was first up and is the only one not on the coast. It's up in the mountains that are often shrouded by clouds and it's much cooler than down by the beach. That's why in the past, so many Portuguese nobility had summer homes there. Besides the beautiful mansions, there is a palace, and even a castle up on the hill. Unfortunately, due to the cloud cover, we never did see the castle and our tour didn't include it. Definitely something I would do if I were to come back.
The area is known for its production of cork which comes from the bark that is periodically harvested. It's also known for its pastries--specifically queijadas--and port wines. My kind of town! First stop, a pastry shop that sells port wine. Surprisingly, not that hard to find. Once again, drinking a little early in the day, but when in Rome....(or Sintra). By the way, the queijadas were amazing. So was the custard filled pastry with the perfectly flaky crust. The port wine, even at 10:00 am, was just the right compliment.
Right across the street from the pastry shop was the Royal Palace, identifiable by its two kitchen chimneys. Moorish in design, it's one of the oldest buildings in Portugal.
We walked around the cute town for a while, checking out the shops and taking some pictures. Our time there was short though, and it was too soon before we had to move on to the next stop.
Praia do Guincho is a beautiful stretch of beach and rocky shoreline along the Atlantic Ocean. It's known by surfers for having the largest waves in the world, but today the waters were relatively calm. From our vantage point we could see the westernmost point of Europe. We only stopped here for some quick photos.
Cascais is a lovely vacation town for the Portuguese. Beautiful coastline, super cute town, shops, cafes, and more of the amazing sidewalk designs I saw in Lisbon. They even made the crosswalk in the street out of the mosaic stones. I'll be adding Cascais to my every-growing list of places I'd like to come back to when I have more time. I would have loved to try out some of the fresh seafood that is supposed to be so good along the Portuguese coast. I also wouldn't mind watching those guys playing "volleyball" with only their heads and feet a little more.
Back at the ship, we were thrown a barbecue lunch by the pool for our last sail-away. However, I missed most of it as I went up to the top level to get some final pictures as we sailed back up the Tagus River to the Atlantic Ocean.
If the red bridge looks a little familiar, it's because it looks just like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It's even the same color. While not built by the same company, it was built by the company that built the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. It was called something else before, but is now known as the 25th of April Bridge. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it's an important date for the Portuguese.
Across the river near the bridge is the Christ the King monument which was inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio di Janeiro. It was erected by the women of Portugal in gratitude that their men didn’t have to fight in WWII.
Making our way out to the Atlantic, we passed the Praca do Comercio, one of the largest squares in Europe. Following that, the Monument to the Discoveries honoring the great Portuguese explorers with the Jeronimos Monastery behind it. Even farther back you can see the soccer stadium. Finally, the Tower of Belem looks like a small castle on the water. Then it was out to the Atlantic and on our way to London.
We had only been docked in Lisbon for about 6 hours (much to my dismay) so we still had our afternoon quiz up on the 12th deck in the Dome Bar. Crazy that after 42 days, that was the first time we had really spent any time hanging out up there. How can that be? After we completely bombed the quiz (1st question: name 10 countries that only have 4 letters in the name—we only could come up with 7, answer below) we switched to a much more mature game. I think it's called “Who Am I?” You know, someone writes a name on a piece of paper and you stick it on your forehead and try to guess the name. Anyway, sitting by the front windows, we noticed a lot of birds diving into the water just off the front of the ship. They turned out to be boobies (they’re birds, get your head out of the gutter!) and they were diving into a large school of fish. You know who else likes fish? Dolphins! Those were the first dolphins we had seen on this trip. I’m not sure how since the people next to us said they had seen about them about 10 different times. From where we were, you couldn’t see that much as we were pretty high up on the ship, but it was still exciting.
And that's pretty much a wrap. I'll have one more post covering our last sea and travel days, but there won't be any more excursions, no more new and exciting cities to explore, and no more photos of amazing people and places. I thought by this time I would be tired of the travel and ready to go home. Instead, just the opposite is true. I'm sad that our journey is almost over.
Next up: We did manage to have a little excitement on our final day.
Quiz Answer: Chad, Cuba, Fiji, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Mali, Oman, Peru, Togo
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