Travel Journal, Part 7

January 1, 2009. Boa Ano Novo!
We started the new year by finishing up our packing while we washed sheets and towels and tidied up the condo. We left for Lisbon shortly after noon, and made the drive in alternating drizzle and downpour.

Close to Lisbon, the highway split, one way going to the south of Lisbon and one way going north. Since we hadn't had to choose a direction on our trip to Almancil, we weren't sure which way to choose, and in the few seconds we had to make a decision, we stayed on the main highway going to the south side. Oops. Wrong choice.

So Carole drove and I tried to navigate, using a map with markings that seemed to bear no relation to the signs we saw along the way. Things were getting tense, since we were supposed to meet a man from the rental car company at the airport at 3:00 so we could drop the car off. We didn't have cell phones, and we had no idea how long it would take us to find the airport from where we were.

I saw a highway on the map that followed the Rio Tejo and would lead us to an airport access road -- at least we would have the river to keep us oriented. But we couldn't see how to get onto this road, and we wound up downtown. Most of the shops were closed for the holiday. The upside of things being quasi-deserted was that found a parking space close to a public phone. Carole called the rental car company, and the man we were supposed to meet said not to worry if we were late. He had to stay at the airport until about 7:00 anyhow. I used the time to try and find our location on the map, and find a route to get ourselves back on track. I thought for sure we had it -- turn at this traffic circle, look for that park. But up ahead was a sign that said "buses only", and we had to make a turn onto a tiny street that had only a few inches of clearance between our tiny Fiat and the cars parked along both sides of the street. Carole's nerves were frayed, and my stomach was tight. Where were we?

Don't ask me how, but we pressed on ahead and found ourselves looking at the Rio Tejo, and the highway that I had tried to get us on in the first place! We headed north, keeping the river on our right, and by that time, we were starting to see signs pointing toward the airport. We made it into the airport entrance without further incident. Oh no! Were we supposed to go to terminal 1 or 2? We followed the road toward the "departures" level, as we had been told to do, and we reached terminal 1 first. There was the man from Rentauto, waving us in! What a relief. (Note that this company, which has no on-site office, had sent a man in on New Year's Day to take care of a few individual customers, and he recognized our average-looking little gray car as we were driving in. You don't get that kind of service in the States.)

We finished the paperwork for the rental car, transferred our bags to a taxi, and let someone else do the driving for a change. The driver gave me a look like "so?" when I told him "Hotel Turim Lisboa", but he seemed slightly mollified when I gave him the address in Portugese. Rua Felipe Folque vinte. The driver was not Mr. Chatty, and he was a very aggressive driver, but he did know where he was going. We got to our hotel in 15 minutes. The hotel was on a quiet side street near Edward VII Park, not the ultra-narrow kind of street, but small enough to have almost no traffic.

The hotel desk clerk spoke very good English -- apparently, this hotel is well known to tourists from Britain, Germany, and Spain. He checked us in, and after conferring with the maintenance man, recommended a nearby restaurant -- Antonio's -- that would be open on New Year's Day. Our room was quite large by European standards, more like an average-sized American hotel room. After a bit of head-scratching, we found that the way you turn the lights (and the rest of the electricity) on is to put your room key card into a slot by the door. That's one way to make sure you don't leave all the lights on when you're not in the room. The lights in the hall outside were motion-activated, another energy-saving measure.

We walked the couple of blocks to Antonio's and had a simple, filling dinner. Back at the hotel, it was still early, so we stopped into the hotel bar for a glass of wine and a chat with the bartender, then called it a night.

January 2. The weather went from drizzle to downpour and back to drizzle all day. No matter, this was our one day in Lisbon (at least, our one day when we weren't exploring downtown totally lost and stressed out). We set out on foot along the limestone mosaic sidewalks. (The sidewalks in the Algarve were mosaics, too.) This helps on a rainy day, since the water drains into the sand between the stone chips.

Another Lisbon sight that reminded us of the Algarve: many apartments had small inflatable Santa figures attached to their balcony railings, climbing up the outside of the railings like a second-story man.

We walked from the hotel to the Baixa, the central shopping region, and site of many historical buildings, near the riverfront. We took a quick espresso break (and got out of the rain for a moment) at a tiny shop next to a police station. The two tiny tables wedged in next to the shop window must have been designed for hobbits. Certainly not zaftig Americans. Police officers wandered in and out, chatting up the shopkeeper. The only thing that was missing was a rack of doughnuts. Some things are the same all over.

As we were taking in the sights around the Praca do Comercio, Carole spotted a tram that was just loading up people for a tour. We got the last two seats, and we welcomed a chance to dry out a bit while touring the city. We plugged in our headphones, tuned to Channel 2 for English, and off we went.

I couldn't get positioned well for photos, and I was more interested in listening to the tour narration anyway, so no photos of this part of our day. We saw churches and museums, residential neighborhoods built in the Pombaline style after the 1755 earthquake, elegant tilework, narrow streets. Very narrow streets. At one point, the tram driver had to stop and ring her bell to summon a driver who had parked his car at a slight angle, protruding about a foot into the street. Clearance was so tight that the trolley couldn't get past. Luckily, the man was close by, and he repositioned his car. At another place, the driver had to slow the tram to a crawl as she skootched the tram around a parked car, with only inches to spare. Everyone on the tram was watching nervously, and we let out an audible group sigh of relief when she made it past. I didn't know you could skootch a tram car, but apparently you can.

We had a late lunch at the Cafe Nicola, very famous locally, with a long history. Art deco decor (1930s remodeling) co-existed with the 18th-century statues and oil paintings. The waiter was very amused to have a couple of Americans as customers, and he teased us, asking if we wanted the whole swordfish or only a single serving.

We slogged around a while more, and bought some souvenirs. A man was selling CDs of fado music from an antique van that had been converted into a traveling shop. We each bought a "best of" CD by Amalia Rodrigues, an icon of Portugese fado music who died in 1999. Then we headed back to the hotel.

We arrived at the hotel around 5:00 PM, just as the clouds were beginning to part and the sun was shining through. Wouldn't you just know it. Dinner at the little restaurant across the street, and an evening of suitcase-packing.

January 3. The taxi arrived at the hotel right on time. After a white-knuckle ride to the airport (I swear we must have been airborne a few times), we checked in for our flight. The flight was uneventful, and we got back to Newark about 2:30 -- a half hour early. Eric showed up right at 3:00, and we regaled him with tales of our adventures on the way back to Carole's house. I stayed at Carole's place that night, making amends to her poor neglected kitties (yeah right -- the cat sitter treated them very well) and catching up on what little chit-chat we had left in us after two weeks.

January 4. On the road again. A big car crash tied up traffic outside Wilmington, but otherwise the trip went smoothly. Back home around 3PM. My Christmas cactus was in full bloom, as if to welcome me back.