The travels of Tim and Megan: Lisbon, Portugal

Christmas Eve

We got up extremely early on Thursday morning and jumped into the minicab bound for Heathrow. We had a 7.30am flight to Lisbon. We were actually very grateful to be able to leave home at 4.30am - it had looked like our trip may never eventuate just days earlier. Firstly the ridiculous cabin crew staff at BA had agreed to strike for 12 days over the Christmas and New Year period (arseholes). However, a judge who clearly had overseas travel plans ruled the strike was unlawful on a technicality, so our flight was back on...until it snowed. There was heavy snow in London in the days leading up to Christmas and then freezing temperatures had frozen over the snow, making the city the largest ice-skating rink in the world, which had closed several airports. But a night of heavy rain had melted the snow and we were away laughing.

We arrived to a much warmer and reasonably pleasant day in Lisbon. After a ridiculous queue at immigration (where apparently it has become acceptable for anyone with children (of any age) to jump to the front of the queue!!! Since when was breeding a disability?!) we escaped the carnage of the Lisbon airport and headed into the city. We had decided to stay in luxury in Lisbon, as it was Christmas and our engagement anniversary and they had a good deal. So we checked into the Sofitel and pretty quickly decided we never wanted to leave!

It was a fairly nice day so we set off to explore Lisbon. We headed through the main city centre area of Baixa and Avenida, through the beautiful squares Praca dos Restauradores, Rossio and Prace da Figueira and checked out some of the main shopping streets on our way to the Alfama district. The footpaths all through the city are made of tiny square paving stones, mainly white but some black to make patterns - very creative!

Alfama was once the most desirable area of Lisbon, which is hard to believe now when you look at the poor, crumbling and dirty neighbourhood. While there are no longer any Moorish buildings standing, the area retains its kasbah-like layout, with tight winding streets snaking around the castle walls on the hilltop. The castle is the Castelo de Sao Jorge (St George's Castle). It was originally a Moorish citadel, but following the recapture of Lisbon from the Moors in 1147, King Afonso Henriques transformed it into the residence of the Portuguese kings. It was later used as a theatre, prison and arms depot. After the massive earthquake that levelled Lisbon in 1755, the remnants of the castle remained in ruins until 1938 when Salazar began a renovation, rebuilding the medieval walls and adding gardens.

We were both quite hungry after our climb of the hill in Alfama. The place that we found to eat at was a restaurant/cafe just outside the walls of the castle. It looked safe enough, but it turned out to be the most disgusting eating experience we have had on our travels...ever. Megan ordered an omelet, which was OK, although it smelled a bit funny. Tim ordered a hamburger, which should be pretty easy. He was presented with two greasy meat patties, that looked like dog food, smelled bad and tasted disgusting. Needless to say, one mouthful was more than enough. There was no bun or lettuce or anything else you might normally find in a hamburger. The meat delights were served with fries - again, pretty safe, you would think. Except the toxic fat seeping from the meat patties had pretty much sunk the entire fleet of fries so that they were submerged in a horrible yellow fatty liquid. Then the guy had put a few olives (Tim's arch nemesis) on top of the fries, just to taint them with the disgusting flavour of olives, so that just in case they had not been liquefied and inedible anyway, the olive flavour would have sealed the deal. In addition, we were presented with two clumps of thick white gooey stuff (potentially cheese of some description...???). We didn't order this and we were not sure what to do with it, so we left it sitting there.

So lunch was disastrous. But thankfully the food for the rest of the trip was very good. We had a little wander around the walls of the castle and then descended the hill back down to the city centre, passing the Se Cathedral on the way. The Se was built in 1150 for the first bishop of Lisbon, on the site of the old mosque. Back in the city centre, we checked out a few shops - there was an insane chocolate/sweet shop with a queue of about 100 people long, which we chose not to join - and then we visited one of Lisbon's famous tourist attractions - the Elevador de Santa Justa.

The Elevador is a Neo-Gothic lift was built at the turn of the 20th century by the apprentice of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. It is one of the more eccentric features of the Baixa area. Passengers can travel up and down inside the tower in one of two smart wood-panelled cabins with brass fittings. There is a viewing platform at the top, offering spectacular views over central Lisbon. There is also a cafe right at the top of the tower, but that was closed on Christmas Eve. We enjoyed the views of the city and also checked out the ruins of the Igreja do Carmo church, which sits just behind the Elevador at the top. The church was destroyed by the earthquake of 1755.

Just as we got out of the lift at the bottom again it started to rain, so we grabbed a bottle of port from one of the many shops selling Portugal's finest product and we headed back to the Sofitel. The hotel staff had left a bottle of champagne and some tiramisu in our room, which was a lovely surprise. Megan had mentioned to them when we booked that it was our "anniversary". So we drank champagne, ate tiramisu and watched German MTV, which was hilarious. It had turned pretty nasty outside so it was extra nice to have a great hotel to hang out in.

In the evening we had dinner at a restaurant close to the hotel. It had stopped raining by that stage, so after dinner, which was a big improvement on lunch, we walked up the hill to the Bairro Alto area. We had read that Bairro Alto was the lively part of Lisbon, packed with fun bars and restaurants. Unfortunately almost everything up there was closed for Christmas Eve, so not only could we not find any bars, there were very few people around and it was rather dark and sifty. There were a few weird guys lurking around, one who was clearly off his face on something and was throwing himself against a wall repeatedly. We decided to bolt before we invited a mugging, and we headed straight back down the hill to the city and called it a night.

Christmas Day

Needless to say, Christmas Day started very slowly for us. The most comfortable bed in the world and extra thick curtains meant we had no idea how late it was. We managed to make it down to breakfast in time (just) and it was amazing. They had all the usual stuff - pastries, bread, cereal, yogurt, fruit etc etc, but we could also order cooked breakfast just how we wanted it, so we had possibly the best omelets ever and sausages and bacon. An excellent start to the day.

Unfortunately it was a pretty grey day and it was forecast to rain for much of the day, but we decided to head out anyway and we caught a tram out to Belem. Belem is about 10 minutes by tram to the west of the city at the mouth of the River Tagus. This is where many Portuguese explorers set sail on their voyages of discovery, so the area is inextricably linked with Portugal's Golden Age. When Manuel I came to power in 1495, he reaped the profits of those heady days of expansion, building grandiose monuments and churches that mirrored the spirit of the time. Two of the finest examples of the exuberant and exotic Manueline style of architecture are the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos and the Torre de Belem.

We walked along the river and checked out the massive Monument to the Discoveries and the Torre de Belem. The Monument to the Discoveries is a huge angular monument right on the waterfront, which was built in 1960 to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator. The 52-metre high monument commemorates the mariners, royal patrons and all of those who took part in the development of the Portuguese Age of Discovery. There is an enormous compass made of coloured pavement stones on the ground in front of the monument, which is very cool, even though New Zealand is not on the map!

Sure enough, it started to rain while we were down by the river and it was pretty heavy, so we got soaked. Further along the river is the majestic Torre de Belem. Commissioned by Manuel I, the tower was built as a fortress in the middle of the River Tagus in 1515-1521. It became a symbol for Portugal's great era of expansion. The real beauty of the tower lies in the decoration of the exterior. Adorned with rope carved in stone, it has openwork balconies, Moorish-style watchtowers and distinctive battlements in the shape of shields. The Gothic interior below the terrace served as a storeroom for arms and a prison. The tower now sits on the bank of the river. It was closed, unsurprisingly, on Christmas Day, but we checked it out from the outside and took a few photos before retreating in search of some shelter.

The other big attraction in Belem is the Mosteiros dos Jeronimos, a monastery commissioned by Manuel I in around 1501. In front of the monastery buildings is the fantastic Praca do Imperio, a beautifully decorated garden built around a central fountain. We scampered inside the church that forms part of the monastery buildings to escape the heavy rain. They were in the middle of the Christmas service but there were plenty of people coming and going and also a couple of dozen tourists sheltering from the rain like ourselves. The church was amazing.

We stayed there for about 15 minutes and then braved the weather again, continuing down the road to a big cafe called Pasteis de Belem, where we had hot chocolate and cakes. After such a big (and late) breakfast, we did not feel like lunch, but we definitely needed a hot chocolate to warm ourselves up. This was also our first introduction to one of Portugal's specialities - custard cakes. These are small round cakes, a little like custard square but with flakier pastry on the bottom and sprinkled with cinnamon and icing sugar on the top. They are so delicious.

We caught the tram back into the city and headed back to the hotel to dry out a bit. The hotel was running a promotion while we were there, where guests were invited to a complimentary chocolate tasting in the bar. We were booked in for our chocolate tasting at 4pm, so after a bit more German MTV we went down to the lobby for hot chocolate, chocolate truffles, cake and fruit dipped in chocolate. It was really good.

We had Christmas dinner in the hotel restaurant in the evening. The food was brilliant - we had prawns for a starter and steak for our mains. The steak was pretty good but the potato that accompanied it was awesome, probably the yummiest potato ever. We rounded off a really relaxing Christmas Day with chocolates and port - perfect.

Saturday

In complete contrast to Christmas Day, Saturday was bright and sunny and a lot warmer (up around 16 degrees again). We decided to spend part of the day in Sintra, a town in the wooded slopes about 40 minutes by train to the north-west of Lisbon. Before that though, we checked out some shops in Lisbon and picked up a few souvenirs.

We then took a ride on one of the iconic yellow cable-car/trams for a scenic tour of the city. The tour was really nice and we saw a bit of the city centre and Alfama, although about 15 minutes in to the ride the tram was completely rammed full of people. A group of rather rotund old Portuguese women piled on with several shopping bags each and we were lucky enough to have most of them gather around us. We are not sure exactly what the smell was, but at least one, possibly more, of them absolutely stunk of one of the worst smells we had ever smelt. We actually had to get off the tram early to escape the stench. Not cool. We finished the tour on foot and walked back down to the city centre. It was actually nice to walk in the sun - it was such a nice day.

Around lunchtime we caught a train from the Rossio station out to Sintra. We were well stocked for the journey with a box of custard cakes! Sintra's stunning setting on the north slopes of the granite Serra, among wooded ravines and and fresh water springs, made it a favourite summer retreat for the kings of Portugal. The town is recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site and draws thousands of visitors all through the year.

On the highest peaks of the Serra de Sintra sits the spectacular Palacio da Pena. The palace is an eclectic mix of architectural styles, built in the 19th century for the husband of the young Queen Maria II, Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Ferdinand appointed a German architect to build his summer palace filled with oddities from all over the world and surrounded by a park. With the declaration of the Republic in 1910, the palace became a museum, preserved as it was when the royal family lived here.

When we arrived in Sintra, we made our way straight to the Palacio da Pena and did a tour of the colourful palace. It was an interesting tour, as there were some really impressive items on display from different parts of the world. The Arab Room and the Ballroom were both beautifully decorated. After our palace visit we headed back down to Sintra town and got a late lunch/snack before catching the train back in to Lisbon.

In the evening we went up to the Bairro Alto area, where this time everything was open and there were plenty of people about. We had a few drinks in a really cool little bar - there were a lot of arty/funky bars and shops in Bairro Alto and a lot of young alternative people around too. It is a really fun place to drink. We had dinner at a restaurant called "Be You", which was also really fun and the food was great.