Slept pretty good since the room was quiet - not even the usual hotel ambient noises.
I don’t know what time zone Lisbon is on (guessing Western European Standard Time) but at 6 AM, it was pitch black outside. I got ready and went downstairs to the breakfast area. Our room is close to the second set of elevators and lets out right at the back entrance of the breakfast room. I opened the door and could not believe what I was seeing. A huge room (not that crowded yet) full of all sorts of food. Here are the offerings – several cold cereals (and milk), oatmeal, an automatic pancake maker, two different kinds of scrambled eggs (one without meat), sunny side up fried eggs, lots of jams and jellies and assorted breads, cheeses of all kinds, pastries of all kinds. And both standard coffee dispensers and espresso and latte makers. This was our usual hotel breakfast on steroids. I got a nice window seat, watched the sun come up,
and wound up having pretty much what I ate on the ship – dry cereal, three pancakes (they are small), scrambled eggs, and coffee. It was all delicious – the best breakfast buffet in a hotel in who knows how long – certainly not during our cruise careers. Coffee refills were easy. It was great. I came down with Ellen a bit later to have some more coffee. Made up for our wonky dinner last night. I should also mention that they had at least four staff handling the tables and making sure things were OK as well as someone in the kitchen (you could see it) making sure that all the food was replenished.
After breakfast, we headed out on our adventure in Lisbon. We walked up the hill to the Aeroporto Metro Station to buy round trip tickets for the day. Our experience at the Metro was not pleasant. The ticket machines are not intuitive and the agents not all that helpful. We did get in line to buy tickets from a ticket agent but a student in front of us purchased 650 Euros worth of tickets and each one had to printed out and stapled to a receipt. We spent over 40 minutes in line. We finally got our tickets (4 euro pp round trip came to $9.11).
Our destination was the only synagogue in Lisbon and that the Metro stop closest to that would be Rato (per the hotel desk clerk). Lisbon does not have a massive transit system and we figured out the system map and saw where we had to change trains and where to get off.. The trains were clean and fast and we got to Rato in about 30 minutes or so. It's a young crowd riding the trains; we might have been the oldest folks on the train.
We found the shul, Shaarei Tikvah, quickly – it was essentially across the street. It did not look active and all we could get was a picture of the sign.
The Rato area is also Little Thailand with lots of Thai restaurants and some spas.
With the long wait to get tickets and the time to get to our destination, I needed to find a bathroom. We were also getting hungry so a place to eat was also on the search list. We wound up in a huge supermarket – Continente
Bom Dia Lisboa - and with some help from a store employee, who spoke some English,
found some ready made sandwiches that would could eat. We bought tuna and
hardboiled egg sandwiches and a coke – total cost $7.52. The check out clerk spoke perfect English (must have
been an US expat). The bathrooms were
also very nice and clean. Success. Ellen couldn’t finish her sandwich so she
took it home. We figured it would last until we got back to the hotel.
We had not had
a massage in over three weeks so we stopped at a Thai Spa that was 50
Euros for one hour – we had a very nice couples massage that ran $134
(including a ATM service charge) – the place was clean, the people were
straight from Thailand (not much English) and very nice. The whole experience was positive.
Nice and relaxed, we started our walk to the Maques de Pombal Turnabout, located between Avenida da Liberdade and Eduardo VII Park.
We found the turnabout named for the powerful Prime Minister who ruled Portugal from 1750 to 1777 (the First Marquis de Pombal)
at the bottom end of the Parque Eduardo VII.
We went across the street to the Parque and found some seats in partial shade. I got some nice pictures looking up at the monuments at the top of the hill (the April 25th Monument). There were lots of people on the grass like it was the beach. There were a number of hop on hop off busses parked so this must be a popular destination.
We stayed there for quite a while – not too hot and a nice view – clean air. Why not?
The way back to the Rato Metro Station was all uphill. So we did get some serious steps in. We found the station, which has a very interesting escalator (all lit up and almost a work of art).
We hopped on (a bit more crowded later in the day), transferred, and got off at the end of the line – Aeroporto. Downhill to the Hotel and back in our nice and comfortable room (it had a state of the art thermostat).
There was still some sandwich left so we shared that for dinner along with some goodies donated by the ship.
A nice day in Lisbon.
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