First of all, a fact about Portugal. Beer is cheaper than water. Enough said.
Portugal is the place I wanted to come to most of all - and Lisbon certainly didn't disappoint on day one. EasyJet may have forced me and Bernard to get up at the crack of dawn, to sit in a tin shed (Luton Airport) for a couple of hours. But it was certainly worth the wait.
The airport is exceptionally clean. To the point where it is sterile, and Spartan. We got through customs and boarded a bus to the city. This was pleasant surprise number one. The public transport system here is brilliant. The bus was cheap, air conditioned and very comfortable and took no time to get to the city.
We arrived at our hostel and immediately asked about tickets to see a football match. Unfortunately, we had to go all the way out to the stadium box office to get tickets. On the plus, their PT is so good, we went out there (ten stops on the metro), got tickets and returned back to the city within an hour and a bit... Brilliant.
Before heading to the stadium though, we had lunch and this little authentic cafe down from our hostel. I had a traditional Portuguese sausage dish, recommended to me by the guide at the hostel. It was ok at best. Bernard ordered something that started with an "l" and could have roughly translated to linguine. The actual translation was Ox tongue. Pleasant surprise number two, it was delicious. Bernard didn't really rate it though.
After returning from the Stadium, we had to organise extra accommodation. We are staying a extra day or so to catch the football. After that, we went exploring. Lisbon is truly amazing. Streets weave and form hairpins. Side alleys have heaps to explore. We walked for a couple of hours and only went through a very small section of the inner city. I'm looking forward to exploring more over the coming days.
No comments:
Post a Comment