Chuck's News: Day 3 - Lisbon - Jet Lag, Sunday, February 5, 2023

It has been as if Jet Lag doesn’t exist. We have been sleeping at night and up all day without ill effects. Friday we roamed the streets of Lisbon getting the lay of the city and it’s history. Saturday we put in 13 miles traipsing up and down its hills. We decided to sleep in today. I thought I would be up about 8, Sally about 10. Not to be. Jet Lag caught up with us. I slept until 10:30am and Sally until 11:30am. We didn’t feel sleep deprived before last night but we obviously were.

Sally had secured lodgings in Porto Covo last night. This is the town from which we will start our hike of the Fisherman Trail Tuesday morning. We planned to see the Alfama district in Lisbon today. There was still time for this to happen , even with this late start. But, first we thought we should take the metro up to the bus station to (1) be sure we knew how to get there, (2) buy our tickets and (3) see another part of the city.

We ate lunch in our room, finishing off the apples we had brought from home and nearly depleting our supply of chicken breast meat, also from home. Then it was out the door and a good walk to the Baixa-Chiado train station to catch the blue line to the Sete Rio (7 Rivers) bus depot.

We got off at the España stop and walked the last half mile to the station. It was a bit confusing because the train, metro and bus stations all share a huge corner of real estate. It turned out we walked a long way around to find the bus station. But that is why we came, to make mistakes today while we weren’t under a time crunch. We eventually found the ticket office, secured our tickets for Porto Covo for 10:30 am tomorrow, then decided we would walk back to our room rather than ride the metro, as the route took us through a big park and down the Avenue Liberdade, the Champs Elysees of Lisbon, a wide avenue with trees and high end stores.

We strolled casually the two and a half miles back to our apartment, stopping to sit on park benches and enjoy the park, poking our head into various stores, having a Pepsi at a coffee shop (no surprise considering my companion) and people watching. We also stopped to buy Sally a sun hat after Érica mentioned that when she hiked the trail the week before the south bound route caused the lower winter sun to be in her eyes day after day.

At the apartment we had a quick bite then headed out the door and up the hill behind us to get to St. Jorge castle entrance. It was a lot of hill climbing and there was a surprising number of people about for 5:00 in the afternoon. We stopped by a sardine shop on the way up the narrow, winding, streets. We skipped the castle tour (€8.50) and enjoyed the narrow streets and shops outside the castle walls. Following Rick Steve’s walking tour of the Alfama neighborhood we ended upon a terrace with a great view out over the river (which at this point is a wide bay). We stopped at a vendor and bought cinnamon and sugar coated churros, then continued downhill until we hit river level, then contoured around the hill until we found elevators to take us up to the level of our apartment. From its top we walked to our place. It was now about 7:00pm and dark. We had planned to meet with Erica tonight so Sally could borrow her trekking poles and I could borrow a pocket knife. Also, she offered to hang on to a few of our items that we didn’t need until our flight home. Since we will be back in Lisbon to fly home we can stop by, say hi return her poles and knife and pick up our stuff. But, Erica texted to say she would be late getting back to town, so we arranged to meet her in the morning.

We spent a few minutes organizing our stuff and packing, then I wrote for a couple hours while Sally showered and relaxed. Tonight we set an alarm. Couldn’t afford a repeat of this morning and miss our 10:30 bus.

An orange tree grows in a niche in the walls on our way up the terraces and roads to the hilltop castle.