Oh, Portugal

Following a hectic three weeks of working on the election and then throwing everything in a suitcase without time to think about it, Lee and I took off for Sydney on the Murrays coach. When we got to the Jolimont Centre and Lee went to pay for our breakfasts, he discovered he did not have his wallet. With no time to go back and look for it, chaos ensued. Daughter Nell was contacted, she went to the apartment while we travelled to Sydney and took it apart, failing to find the wallet. Nevertheless she drove to Sydney to deliver a spare drivers licence to Lee. As neither his eftpos nor his credit card has been used, we assume the wallet is hidden somewhere at home. Fortunately much can be done on line, we have TravelMoney Cards (I still had both of them when we left), and all is more or less well. As they said in Apollo 13, "Looks like we've had the glitch for the mission". 

Then after the rush to board (we had been wandering in a fog), followed a long but uneventful flight - Thai Air to Bangkok then Lufthansa to Frankfurt and then Lisbon. About 30 hours all told, none of which we'll ever get back. The trip messed us around more than previous ones had, and we really couldn't give Lisbon the attention it deserved. However, there were some high- and low-lights to recount.

The combination high- and low-light was our accommodation. It was brilliantly situated, in Alfama, a labyrinth of narrow, cobble-stoned streets going up or down almost randomly. We were just around the corner from the Lisbon Cathedral, also called the Se, the oldest church in the city and the see of the Archdiocese of Lisbon.  A huge tourist area, so lots of little shops selling souvenirs of Portugal, including potery fish or fish on tiles, aprons or tee-shirts, and pottery roosters (?). Our apartment was up 2 flights of stairs, and we had a large room to ourselves, plus use of a kitchen and a bathroom, shared with three other rooms (potentially 8 persons). We have of course made a pact never to share a bathroom again. The bed, wonder of wonders, was comfortable, and we spent a lot of time on it! The main other downside of the accommodation was that they had charged my credit card twice, and failed to respond to my complaints. I have found that Booking.com is worth their weight in gold - a customer service person waited on the phone while the manager put through a refund that frankly I don't think she had any intention of doing before that.

Lisbon is chokker block full of history - who knew? We got a lot of it during a walking tour we did, which was very informative and not tooooo tiring. Our guide knew all the public elevators we could use to get from one point to another, and we discovered that these elevators connect, making a path for pedestrians from the high parts of the city to the low ones. One of the most striking things we visited was a cathedral which had burnt and then was not restored except for the ceiling. It was almost spooky without the usual gilt and bright colours. 

Lisbon's outstanding feature is its tile walls, sometimes covering half or more of a building. 

Tiles are a feature not just on walls but other decoration, as these fabric tile patterns mounted on wood in the restroom of a cafe we went to illustrate. 

We didn't see anything like what we should have in Lisbon, but still left with an impression that it is a place where you can live well. Then on to Porto.