Lisbon.  The beginning and end of a wonderful trip to Portugal and Spain.

The beginning of our trip starts in Lisbon.
Oct 28, 2017

We’d purchased a few groceries so had a quick breakfast before heading out on our walking tour of Alfama. We paid 21 euro for a tour with Inside Lisbon. It was okay but I’d choose a free tour if I did it again as it wasn’t worth the price. It included a free tram ride and wine and cheese tasting but the guide was hard to hear and we spent a lot of time just trying to make sure we could see her. It did give us an idea of where we were and a bit of information on the city. Our guide was going on the train after so we decided to take the train to Belem. She said it was easy and left us. Either it wasn’t that easy or I’m not very smart. I purchased 4 return tickets to Belem, assuming we could all use the same card. Nope. It didn’t work so the others ended up buying their own ticket anyway. That left me with 3 unused return tickets to Belem. We gave them to a man later and he said he’d find someone who could use them

We saw the sights in Belem but it was SO HOT, it was hard to really enjoy it. Gelado was a welcome treat.

Back in Mouraria we wandered some more, back into Alfama and ended up back at Susanna’s snack bar for dinner. Why not? The food was good and reasonably priced. Our garmins said we did about 26,000 steps. My calves were sore from all the steps. Lisbon is called the city of 7 hills for good reason.

The next day we went to Sintra which deserves it’s own post:  Sintra, Portugal in one day

More time in Lisbon a month later.  November 24, 217

Since we had to stop in Lisbon anyway, we decided to extend the stop over and spend the whole day visiting Lisbon again. There’s a luggage storage place beside the parking lot in the airport so you don’t have to carry your bag all day. Taking the train into the city from the airport is easy and takes only 15-20 minutes. A gorgeous day was spent wandering the city, enjoying lunch out doors and wandering some more before taking the train back to the airport.