Finally, we’re on the road again. On August 9, the date of our 35th wedding anniversary, 18 months after returning to the US because of Covid, we fly again to Europe to continue our retirement journey. Our first stop is Lisbon: Before boarding our flight, we had to show our Passports, our Covid Vaccine cards, our Passenger Locator Forms, and our negative PCR tests from within 72 hours of the flight. The flight was great, but Evan can’t sleep on the plane. The Passport Checker in Immigration actually joked with us and showed us how his blacklight revealed images that we never knew were on our passports.
We stayed at Brown’s, an old established hotel in the center of Lisbon and enjoyed a small but nicely appointed room.
In our last visit to Lisbon, we did not go up to the Castle de San Jorge, so we went this time, took the guided tour, and then stayed to take photos around sunset. It was a beautiful, sunny day, but quite windy on the towers of the Castle.
As we waited to enter the Castle, we enjoyed the Pastel de Bacalhau, a Codfish Cake with Serra Cheese filling, paired, of course, with a glass of Port.
A RUDE AWAKENING ON OUR FIRST NIGHT: We are sound asleep at 7:20am. Suddenly Sara is awakened by a loud hissing noise. She jumps up, looking into the open bathroom door to see steamy water spraying all over the bathroom floor and into the bedroom. Evan rushes in to find the water valve to shut it off, but the water is now too hot – it was the hot water line that has burst. Sara calls room service, and a young man arrives quickly, carrying a few large towels to wrap around his arm so he can safely reach in to shut the valve. He’s seen this once before, so he knows just what to do.
The hotel moved us immediately to another room. Things like this will happen, especially in an old building – despite the modern renovation. But the hotel staff were very gracious, generous and supportive. Just another travel adventure: a new story to laugh about.
Sara wanted to find the start of the Camino Portuguese in Lisbon. So after breakfast we sought out the Church of Santiago, which quite naturally is the starting point. It was closed and marked only with a sign indicating the start of the Camino. We decide to walk “the way” for just a while, taking us into the Al Fama area of Lisbon, a very old section of steep walkways, with twisting cobblestone streets, wide enough for just one vehicle at a time. One of the oldest sections of Lisbon, the Al Fama retains a taste of the Muslim, Moorish history. We were lost for a bit in the labyrinth of streets, but then came out into a main artery at the Museum of Fado.
It was such a hot day, we entered the museum café where a friendly waiter made an iced coffee to our specifications. (Iced coffee wasn’t on the menu). With appreciation, I gave him a nice tip. He visited with us at our table for a bit, just talking about Lisbon, the USA, Covid and politics. Then we took in the museum and learned more about the history of Fado, which originated there in Lisbon. We decided to go to a true Fado show that evening. Since August is high tourist time in Europe, many shows were booked, but our hotel was able to get us a seat in the “Clube da Fado.”
For us, this was a very late night. We were seated at 8:30, ordered very fine meals. There were three musicians – one on Spanish (classical) guitar, one on Portuguese guitar, one on a stand-up bass – to accompany solo fado singers. We heard three singers, one man and two women. Sara really loved the man’s singing. Evan loved the guitars, but our table had us behind the Portuguese guitar, so he couldn’t see much. We stayed through four sets, so Sara heard the male singer twice. We got back to the hotel about midnight. A lovely night, and now we think we appreciate Fado much more. Sara just loved it and felt the emotion of the songs even though we couldn’t understand the words. Evan enjoyed it too, but he still wants subtitles.
The next morning we would travel from Lisbon, Portugal to Dublin, Ireland.
