Saturday 27 May 2023

Travelling

We've been travelling.  We went to Portugal to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.

We started by flying from our local airport to Lisbon.  We had booked a hotel in the middle of the city for 5 nights arriving quite late on the Tuesday evening.  Wednesday was our first full day.  We walked to the Tourist Office in the Praca do Comercio.


I try not to have people in my photos but it was impossible to get photos without all the tourists.

The highest point of the city is the Castelo de Sao Jorge.  However we didn't go straight there.  We took it in easy stages, firstly visiting the Church of Santo Antonio.

 This was virtually next door to the Cathedral.


We then had a steep climb to a viewpoint over the city and the river.

Yet another very steep climb took us to the castle.


We had lunch after visiting the castle which was downhill and then walked back up to another viewpoint most of which was cordoned off because of building works.  In fact everywhere we went in Lisbon seemed to be having rebuilding works or scaffolding.  Many of my photos have large cranes in them - and sadly not the bird variety!



After this we walked back to the hotel, had a rest and then went out to dinner.

On day 2 we took the tram to Belem.  The queue to visit the main attraction, Monsteiro Dos Jeronimos, was phenomenally long and fortunately neither of us were bothered to go round it.  Instead we wandered over to the Henry the Navigator memorial although it's actually called the Monument to the Discoveries.

It was possible to take a lift up inside the monument.

Belem Tower

Monsteiro Dos Jeronimos

If a place has a Maritime Museum then it is a must-see for Roger.  Me? I'm not so fussed but there were some nice benches to sit on.

Plus a whole collection of royal barges.


After visiting a rather disappointing Botanic Garden we had a late lunch before setting off for a differnt Botanic Garden - the Jardim Botanico Da Ajuda.  However on our way the road was closed because an ambassador was arriving to present his credentials to the President and he was accompanied by these:


We finished making our way to the garden.  On spying yet another steep hill we got there on a bus.


We took a tram back to the city.  After a rest we went out to dinner.

I took 181 photographs over these two days but I think the photos I've put here give you a flavour of the trip.

Next time: Sintra and Cascais

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing. We loved Lisbon, Sintra and Cascais. In Sintra we did more steps than we’ve ever done anywhere else - over 30k - except for our first day in Venice on another holiday! (When we both did over 40k!)

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