Unfortunately, there are no trains that go directly from Seville to Lisbon, so we had to catch a train back to Madrid to catch the night train to Lisbon. We did a night train on our Europe 2011 trip and I highly recommend it. You save the cost of a hotel for the night and you don't "lose time" traveling. The one difference last year was that our seats laid out into beds, these ones did not, and it wasn't worth the extreme cost to rent a private cabin. This train would only let you bunk by sex, so the only way we could have shared a bunk/bed/berth, was to pay for a private cabin and that is $$$ that we didn't feel would have been well spent.
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| Time to catch Train #1 |
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| Good morning sketchy area of Lisbon |
Some things that we didn't know when we arrived in Lisbon at 7am that morning after night of not being able to sleep on the train (over 24 hours of awakedness at this point):
1.) It was a national holiday in Portugal
2.) None of the public (local trains, metro, buses, etc) or private (cabs) methods of transportation would be operating because of the holiday
3.) The city workers had been on strike for the past weeks
So what does this mean?
1.) All of the stores and most of the restaurants are closed
2.) We are walking all the way to our hostel
3.) There is trash and debris E V E R Y W H E R E
So we walk from the train station to our hotel through a pretty sketchy area if I do say so myself. Nothing happened and we didn't see anybody other than the couple that was walking ahead of us (they also had arrived on the train from Madrid and encountered our situation). So it was completely uneventful, but I was pretty disheartened from the walk. Lisbon was quiet, empty, and REALLY dirty. This was not how I wanted to end our trip...
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| Ok, this is better...much less sketchy. The view from our hostel. |
We make it to our hostel at 0800, hoping to be able to check in early again and get some much needed rest. No such luck, as the room was still occupied, but the hostel had a really awesome lounge they invited us to crash in with a continental breakfast to nosh on, and wi-fi to peruse the internets with.
If you go to Lisbon, skip any hotel and stay at:
Lisbon Story Guest House
It is the most charming and eclectic place you will ever stay and we had an awesome time. The caretakers are really interesting and super helpful people who seem to LOVE they job (and I cannot emphasize this enough). We had a private room on the top floor with its own bathroom, but it was at such an angle that we had to stoop in half the room and all of the bathroom, and had to sit in the shower because the roof was too short, but it was AWESOME. I don't know why the room didn't bother us when it would typically be something we would not tolerate at all...but it didn't, it was perfect. Just the whole personality of the place...I wish this place could be duplicate in every place that we ever travel, they would have us as dedicated visitors for life. It is located in the heart of the city and the employees seriously do anything and everything they can to ensure that you have the best trip of your life in your city and achieve everything that you are hoping to.
Ok, enough of this soap box, just stay here already.
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| Time to find lunch and explore this city! |
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| Lunch...this was adjacent to our table, and they were alive...guilt sets in right about...now. |
So keeping with my theme of trying anything once and shedding old food phobias, we ordered a crab. I cracked crab shells, broke joints, picked flesh...I ate it AND enjoyed it. Yes, it huge. I really let go of a lot on this trip.
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| Not too much guilty though, tasty crabs! |
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| Post-lunch city exploration and calorie burn |
The rest of the day was spent just walking up and down the hills, exploring the neighborhoods, viewing the city from every vantage point, and enjoying the beautiful weather and city together.
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| Welcome to Lisbon |
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| Such a picturesque locale |
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| We do this vacation thing really well in my opinion |
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| Just enjoying the peace of mind and refreshing breath of fresh air that this trip brought |
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| Some of the bajillion steps we descended |
An interesting note about Lisbon: It is a city built on 7 hills just like Rome, Mecca, and Jerusalem (there are many more than this)...and these are REALLY steep hills. We definitely got out work out traversing this city, and it allowed for some really awesome sites. Instead of roads between the neighborhoods, there are stairs...lots and lots and lots and LOTS of stairs. I was impressed with the people doing these lugging groceries, strollers, luggage, what have you...and they do it all day every day. No wonder they don't have an obesity epidemic.
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| And some of them that we ascended... |
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| It is not a proper city unless there is a castle: Castelo de Sao Jorge |
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| The other side of the castle on the hill |