Sunday, October 5 - Lisbon
Last night we spent about 90 minutes in the first class lounge at the Madrid train station, enjoying snacks and drinks, then squashed ourselves into our sleeping compartment for the night. It was small, but we both slept well.
We drank coffee in the bar car while we watched the sun come up as we entered Lisbon. Our taxi driver was an interesting guy, perhaps in his 50s or 60s, who says he's never been out of Lisbo or worn a hat except when he was in the army. He's driven a taxi since he was 19 and says his mind has turned into an automatic GPS. He told us traffic patterns in the city are very messeed up because he thinks "they were on drugs when they planned the changes". Of course at 8:15 am our hotel room wasn't ready, so we left our luggage and walked to the nearby train station and went to Sintra. We decided to visit just the Pena Palace and then return to Lisbon.
The palace was well-worth the visit. The last king of Portugal lived there as well as a couple of his predecessors. We both thought it was a liveable palace, compared to many we've seen. Our timing arriving back at the Tivoli Lisboa was perfect -- the rest of the group arrived just as we were arranging for our luggage to be sent to our room. They were all tired after their long trip. We felt guilty for not being jet-lagged anymore. And also for not scoping out a local source of wine! About an hour later, our luggage still had not appeared, so Larry called the front desk about it. A few minutes later we saw Fred & Alma arriving at their room across the hall, and chatted a few minutes with them. When they went in, Alma said "Look, there's already a bunch of luggage here". It was, of course, ours. It had been delivered there during the day. Meanwhile, of course, the folks in reception were going crazy trying to figure out where our luggage had disappeared to. Relief all 'round!
The gang might be tired, but that didn't stop the hall party tonight. Nice to spend some time chatting and getting on the same wave-length before we start serious touring tomorrow.
Last night we spent about 90 minutes in the first class lounge at the Madrid train station, enjoying snacks and drinks, then squashed ourselves into our sleeping compartment for the night. It was small, but we both slept well.
We drank coffee in the bar car while we watched the sun come up as we entered Lisbon. Our taxi driver was an interesting guy, perhaps in his 50s or 60s, who says he's never been out of Lisbo or worn a hat except when he was in the army. He's driven a taxi since he was 19 and says his mind has turned into an automatic GPS. He told us traffic patterns in the city are very messeed up because he thinks "they were on drugs when they planned the changes". Of course at 8:15 am our hotel room wasn't ready, so we left our luggage and walked to the nearby train station and went to Sintra. We decided to visit just the Pena Palace and then return to Lisbon.
The gang might be tired, but that didn't stop the hall party tonight. Nice to spend some time chatting and getting on the same wave-length before we start serious touring tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment