We were beginning to get to grips with Lisbon, it is a city, not something that either Lynne or myself are too enamoured of. Indeed we had both found Lisbon initially to be very confusing, noisy, busy and a little intimidating. It is also however, incredibly rich and interesting. It is slightly run down maybe little scruffy, but it has some unbelievable architecture and a history that goes back almost before recorded time.
Lynne and I had decided to explore by public transport as much as possible and to limit the major attractions to one a week as they are quite expensive in terms of entrance fees etc.
So once we were comfortable with the Via Viagem cards which give you travel on Carris services, (Buses, trams, Metro and funiculars), We use Zapping to load our cards with cash ,not the tourist day tickets, it works out cheaper and is very good value. We had a few days out just hopping on and off transport in the city. Like proper pensioners, apart from the fact that at home my bus pass I had been looking forward to receiving when I was 60 had just vanished into a future where I was 67. Ah well it was of no use to me here anyway.
Markets are usually a good jump off point, people converge to shop chat and generally hang out., The one photographed above is the Ribeira market at Cais de Sodre. It seems to consist of a good range of booze shops and cafe bars, just outside and a hundred metres up the road however is a small church on a dusty square, its typically Portuguese but as you look up there is a glorious trompe l`oeil ceiling.
I'm afraid my poor photo doesn't remotely do it justice. I think the Church is the church of San Paulo.
The Metro is my favourite way of travelling about the city, after the trams. Lynne and I are getting used to its eccentricity's, The locals will always complain about it but its from the perspective of a Lisbon native, try telling them you have never waited more than 5 minutes for a train and they will look at you strangely, "Yes its terrible isn't it?"
It does have other attractions, like the man who plays accordion on the red line with his dog, yes I paid them both, well they made me laugh!
One day we went out into the boondocks looking for an aquaduct and discovered a vast park in the middle of the city.
It had remains of old fortifications.
More importantly miles of pathways where you could almost imagine yourself in the countryside.
After a bit of exploration we found the most visible part of the aquaduct in a very deprived area that reminded us of the Cape Verdes and it was obvious we were off the tourist track in the poorer part of town.
We do aimless wandering quite well, I now think of it as "familiarisation". At no point did we feel remotely threatened and wandering the small streets and finding our way by luck rather than management occupied us all afternoon.
Of course we did find the aqueduct.
And a place to photograph it from, before wending our way back into the huge park area.
Which amongst other things had a climbing wall and Arial ropeway stashed amongst the trees.
We returned home eventually to receive an invitation for cocktails from fellow OCC member Steve. We had planned to travel to Sintra but the hospitality on board the Walter J was so good it took us a day to recover! Steve is a singlehanded American sailor and is another OCC member who epitomises the spirit of the club by his extraordinary voyages.
Steve was stuck waiting for suitable weather conditions for a trip to Madeira.
Later we would invite Steve for Thanksgiving as the weather wasn't cooperating! I'm afraid the drink took over again and there isn't a single selfie to show, but we will no doubt meet again.
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