Tag: Metro Red Line

Lisbon 2018

Departure Day

Why is it that the weather on your last day is always the best? I guess you could call it ‘Sol’s Law’. I got up quite early, used the hotel lobby WiFi to add pictures to yesterday’s blog, checked out, leaving my bags with the concierge and set off under the brightest of cloudless blue skies to where I should have made my way last night. The trusty Blue Line from Parque took me to the river near the ferry terminal and the one major area of the city centre I hadn’t yet explored – Alfama.

Breakfast in a sunny square was good but maybe I should have waited to feast at one of the more traditional establishments that line the narrow streets of Alfama. I didn’t get to check out why there was a big poster for Jose Saramago, an author I like a lot. However, refreshed, I make my way up to the cathedral a fine edifice with imposing twin towers and more tuk-tuk operators than you could shake the proverbial stick at. They could probably have taken me up to the nearby castle but I preferred to saunter in the sun through the narrow streets and plunging stairways of the district.

I felt doubly bad about missing fado last night as I though all the shows would start around 22:00 (a friend told me the best ones do) but many of the bars advertised shows starting at 19:30 so I might just have stayed awake,

Alfama is a fascinating district with many souvenir shops aimed at the tourist market but also dry cleaners, bag wash shops, hairdressers (no – barbers) and minimercados with those dim interiors that reveal so many product lines to the intrepid. Also there’s a full complement of churches as befits one of the earliest settled parts of the city. My foot funicular took me along part of the route of the famous Tram 28. The queue to board was already long so I just snapped it and thought of San Francisco.

After an hour or so of exploring I found a view of the river through a break in the street and made my way down steps and steep and slippery cobbles to Santa Apolonia which is the eastern terminal of the Blue Line. I thought I’d have another look around Chiado so rode the two stops to the Baixa-Chiado station. This must be one of the deepest stations on the metro (Google confirms it as the deepest at 45 metres) as I had steps and then four long escalators before reaching the surface. It was much livelier today than on my previous Christmas Day visit and after a bit of sightseeing and window shopping my eye was caught by a barber shop with beer. It’s a really funky venue where you have a trim with a Lagunitas IPA (if trendy, Sagres if not) while your friends enjoy a drink and/or a snack.

Time to head back, pick up bags and make for the Red Line to the airport. That was the easy bit. The metro delivers you to Terminal 1 and you follow signs to Terminal 2 as that’s what it said on my boarding pass. In a large concrete desert is a little bus stand with a shuttle bus to T2 – you have to be sharp to spot it! This takes you to the distant, isolated terminal which is exclusively for Ryanair, EasyJet, Whizz and Norwegian. It’s not connected to any other part of the airport – no lounge! – and is very sparse and functional. I do recall a lengthy bus transfer when we arrived but nowhere else have I ever had rubbed in so firmly “Hey guys you opted for low cost air travel – this is what it feels like”. Once again the Priority Queue was longer than the Other Q as they call it and since we all had to go to the plane by bus it didn’t really matter. The flight was thirty minutes late leaving and struggled with a head wind but my faithful Data Cars driver was there to meet me at Stansted. He’s a Pakistani with an MBA from London Metropolitan University and the best job he can get is driving. We had a lengthy political discussion all the way down the M11 fortunately with shared views about most of the ills of the modern world.

Lisbon provided an extremely pleasant break over Christmas. There is much more to see and do and it would feel very different at other times of the year. Worth another visit? Definitely.

Lisbon 2018

Boas Festas, Bon Natal

After the quickest taxi journey to Stansted ever, I breezed through security and went to the Escape Lounge for a hearty breakfast and a thorough read of the Observer. After a leisurely hour I made my way to the gate to find that the Priority Boarding queue is twice as long as the non-Priority. That’s because Ryanair make you buy Priority is you want to take a cabin wheelie case on board. I didn’t want to check baggage for just a week away so I joined the end of the line and waited, and waited. The incoming flight was delayed and so boarding for us was delayed. Standing in the airbridge to the stairs that would take us to the plane – how much extra does it cost in airport fees to push the bridge to the door and avoid all that up and down with luggage that could be wheeled not carried? – a fellow traveller spotted my Watford FC lapel badge and offered, pointing at my chest, “Good result for you yesterday!” “Indeed” I replied “and in all honesty I didn’t expect it. West Ham have been on a great run and we’ve been playing well but not getting the results.” It transpired that he is a Man United fan and would have been in Cardiff but for the lack of trains to get him back to ensure catching this flight today. We chatted a little more about the beautiful game, managers and player commitment and then they actually put us on board but rows apart so the conversation ended there. I’ve always said that if someone finds that you are a football fan you’ll never be short of a conversation – sometimes enjoyable, sometimes rather boring. This could have gone on happily for the entire flight I suspect.

So having taken a cab to the airport, gone in a posh lounge, paid for priority boarding, when I get to Lisbon I decide to take the pauper’s option to get to the hotel. This involved walking a very short distance to the Metro station, buying a rechargeable Via Viagem card and taking the Red Line (actually called Linea Vermelha which struck a chord as one of the pieces in my Japan book is about Vermillion) to Saldanha which looked the nearest station on the map. It wasn’t as I learnt after finally making it through a maze of hilly streets to be told I should have gone to the end of the line at Sao Sebastiao which is five minutes closer. Also Lisbon’s streets are paved with annoying small squares of stone which wreak havoc on the wheels of your suitcase.

I checked in to a surprisingly large room and went for a quick orientation ramble around the neighbourhood, finding the Blue Line station for tomorrow’s outing and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for Boxing Day. Back at the hotel for a beer (two actually as it was happy hour and they twisted my arm) I caught the end of Everton going down 2-6 to Spurs and then watched as local side Benfica put in 6 again to Braga’s 2. How often do you witness two 6-2 score lines on the same day?

It was Sunday night and the restaurant options were limited but the suggestion of Miguel at reception that I walk to the other end of the street (not very long) to Colina was a great choice. It’s a neighbourhood locale filled with families, some of whom I followed down the road from church, with a buzzing atmosphere and very tasty food.

I had a fish soup with four huge prawns and then a speciality from the area of spiced pork with clams which went down well. Having recently discovered in the UK a Portuguese grape called Alicante Bouschet at my local Laithwaites, I asked if they had one and the best they could do was a blend with Cab Sauv. It slid down very nicely anyway. A brisk walk through a cool evening – down to 8 degrees – and the sleep of the traveller.