Matt and Lisa's Adventures

31 December 2023

We flew to Abu Dhabi and then onto Lisbon flying Etihad airlines. I’m not sure what was going on but both flights were very empty and so we were each able to get a row of seats to ourselves. This enabled us to lie close to flat which assisted in getting a better sleep than we would have had otherwise. I got about four hours sleep in the first flight which helped compensate for the crappy sleep from the previous night. Then a couple of hours on the second flight which was a nice bonus. The flights were great – nice food and fast service due to the aircraft being so empty.

We were at the new terminal in Abu Dhabi and it was really nice. One thing we noticed immediately was how much friendlier the people we interacted with were compared to Shanghai. People providing assistance, thanking us and acknowledging our thank yous. Security was also a contrast – in Shanghai we received a thorough pat down, in Abu Dhabi no one was even monitoring the metal detector!

Lisbon had a fast lane for people with electronic passports which we could use and so we breezed through customs and immigration. Then it was onto the metro which we could use our credit cards for – another great advantage over Shanghai.

Our hotel was 40 meters from the subway stop and a very short walk to town. A great location – so that was a win for us! It was 9am so we weren’t able to check in but we dropped our bag and headed out for an adventure. There was a bit of rain and so I got to crank out my new blunt umbrella – thanks Rhys!

The city centre was very quiet – probably down to it being early morning on a Sunday. The first impression was that the city was very pretty with cobblestone streets and nice, historic buildings. We found a nice place for our first European hot chocolate and coffee. We also had Portuguese custard tarts which were delicious.

As we wandered around in the morning we saw numerous runners out and about. Great to see, but also just a reminder that it’s been a while since my last run with no chance of another one for nearly a month.

Next stop was the Castle de S. Jorge which was on top of a hill next to the city. It was a tough walk up the hill in light rain and our jet lagged state. There was a large line for entry as the castle closed at 1pm and was closed the following day for New Year’s. The castle had been built hundreds of years ago and adapted over time. There wasn’t much of it left apart from some very high and impressive walls surrounded by a moat. Considering the size, height and location of the castle it was easy to see how difficult it would be to assault. There were impressive views out over the city and across the river, but due to the fog there wasn’t as much visibility as on a nice day.

Strangely there were about ten peacocks in the castle as well – not sure of their significance.

We wandered down the hill watching cars try to navigate the narrow and steep streets including buses and little green rental cars. At one stage we heard a crash behind us where a smart car had smashed into the side of another car. Everyone looked okay but there was a decent amount of damage to both cars.

For lunch we went to a specialty fries shop. We tried the Amsterdam and New York flavours – they were delicious.

We had a walking tour with Jaime who studied history and was very good. He covered:

• How important the sea is to Lisbon and Portugal. This is evident in the name of the country, the name of the second city (Porto) and the name Lisbon itself which means port of enchantment
• The history of early Lisbon. Started as a trading port that was taken over and influenced by many civilisations over the centuries including the Moors, Romans and Arabs.
• Lisbon had been attacked many times by the Spanish and had managed to defend itself nearly every time despite having a much smaller population and military. They had some military geniuses over the years which helped dramatically
• Lisbon was very important in maritime trade and produced many great navigators and captains. Initially it was important as it was half way between the Mediterranean and Britain which made it a good location for trade. Then the Portuguese were the first to work out how to sail against the winds which gave them a massive advantage. They used this to create trading routes across different oceans and to generate great riches for the city and the country.
• We walked onto the Lisbon elevator which towers above the city with good views. This was built to celebrate the start of the 20th century and was completed in 1902 by one of Gustav Eiffel’s students. You could catch the elevator up or just walk onto the top by climbing the hill and walking through a building. We went with the second option. All our tour guides said that paying to go up the elevator was a waste of time and money
• The city of Lisbon was devastated by a massive earthquake in 1755 which was followed by a tsunami and then a fire. This killed about a third of the population and destroyed a massive proportion of the city. At the time Portugal was very rich due to its Brazilian colony and its leading role in the spice trade. It took over a hundred years to rebuild the city and Lisbon lost a lot of its prestige and trade while this happened. The earthquake is the one major defining event of the city – something that we (coming from Christchurch) can relate to.
• The Portuguese monarchy ended in the early 20th century after an assassination. This was followed by a turbulent period before the fascists seized power. They ruled Portugal for several decades before being overthrown in a popular uprising on the 25th of April 1974 – nearly fifty years ago. Portugal then became a democracy.
• Portugal had financial troubles and needed to be bailed out in 2008. The country has low productivity and wages along with a high tax rate but good public services. Portugal is trying to position itself as a country for investment and has significant lithium deposits which are important for battery technologies. They are also trying innovative approaches like the digital nomads visa to try to develop sustainable growth and revenue.

For dinner we went to a restaurant on the Main Street sitting outside. Jaime had told us to stay away from the town centre for eating as it is a tourist trap but in our tired state we were just keen for an easy option rather than having to explore a different neighbourhood especially with busyness of New Year’s Eve. Lisa had the vegetarian lasagna which she highly rated. I had the Brazilian picanha – it was ok but nowhere near as good as what Andrew makes.

Dinner was very early and we were back to the hotel by 7pm. We challenged ourselves to stay awake until at least 8pm so that we could try to get onto European time. I only just made that – as soon as my head got the pillow I was out of it.

1 January 2024

Yesterday we saw everything being set up for Lisbon’s New Year’s Eve celebrations including a concert in the main commerce square. With our flights and lack of sleep we were not in a fit state for going out to celebrate New Years and so it was an early night for us. You would think with the need for sleep that we would get a great night’s sleep. Unfortunately that didn’t happen for either of us. I woke up with the fireworks at midnight and didn’t get back to sleep for four hours. So frustrating when lying there knowing you need to sleep, want to sleep, should be about to sleep – but sleep won’t come.

On top of that Lisa had been felling unwell with what seemed a lot like COVID symptoms. We had avoided testing so as to not confirm anything that might impact our plans. She was a trooper, carrying on even though she wasn’t feeling great.

We had been concerned about what would be open New Year’s Day as it had been very quiet last year in Barcelona. Thankfully, Lisbon was nowhere near as bad. However, all monuments and museums were closed and there were few tours going. We eventually found one at 10am for a tour of the Alfama neighbourhood.

When we arrived at the start point there were two other couples waiting and we found a guide but she was talking furiously into her phone. When she eventually finished she told us the tour was cancelled due to a “misunderstanding” – I suspect the guide was just too hung over from New Years to be bothered doing the tour. One of the other couples was from Italy and they mentioned there was another tour leaving from a nearby square and so we rushed with them to join that tour.

The new tour was about the city centre and covered a little of the same area from the previous day but there was enough new content to make it worthwhile and tour guide was very entertaining.

• We saw a cathedral that had a massive fire that killed a lot of worshippers. When the church was rebuilt they left the fire damaged interior intact. It was very impressive to see this and made for a very interesting church
• The memorial to the Jews. At one point in history there was a big push for Jews and Muslims in Portugal to convert to Christianity – often forcefully. One day in the church a Christian said he saw the face of Jesus. Another “new Christian” (former Jew) tried to provide a rational explanation for what was seen. This infuriated the congregation and so he was killed and the Christians set about killing many of the Jewish community in Lisbon. The memorial commemorated and remembered this tragedy.
• This guide, like yesterday’s, criticised the elevator and told people to save their money and walk up.
• Like yesterday’s tour we went through lots of short cuts at we moved about the city, particularly between the different levels of the city. Lisbon is certainly the city of shortcuts for those who are in the know
• The central train station was amazing. It featured a statue of King Sebastian – although it is a replica as the original was destroyed when a drunk tourist climbed it in an attempt to take a selfie. Sebastian was a boy king who headed to Africa for adventure and never came back. It’s a Portuguese saying that an unlikely thing will happen “when Sebastian returns”.
• Portuguese cobblestones are used in the footpaths throughout the city. While they can by slippery they are very beautiful with their patterns. The stones and patterns can also be seen in lots of other cities around the world that were influenced by the Portuguese

After the tour we grabbed a lunch of pizza bread from Paul. We then headed out to do our own walk around Alfama. This was a lot less successful than doing a proper tour. The suggestion was to wander around and just get lost in the place – which we did and it was ok but not very interesting. We found some cathedrals and nice lookout areas as we walked.

We had a food tour booked for the evening and met our guide, Joanna, at one of the city squares. The tour covered:

• Ginjinha which is a liquor made with sour cherries. It was an interesting flavour but not something I would drink a lot of. It was bigger than a standard shot glass and it definitely warmed up the insides. We were told that in some parts of the city it is served in chocolate cups so that you can eat the cup after you have finished with the drink.
• Next stop was a nice restaurant that specialises in food from a particular area of Portugal. There we had a glass of red wine and some slow cooked pork – which was very nice. The alcohol helped everyone to open up and we had an interesting chat with a couple of Americans. Chris in particular was memorable – he seemed to do a lot of traveling without much of a job and seemed to know everybody and everything
• Then it was onto a restaurant for “rice with sea food”. It wasn’t for us but I did enjoy the rice. Lisa was not a fan
• Then it was up as hill to the next restaurant. Here we had a beer, some cabbage soup, chorizo and cod fish cakes. Cod fish is a big thing in Lisbon and there are hundreds of recipes for how to cook it although the fried cod fish cake is one of the most popular. It is weird as cod fish are not from around the Lisbon area and instead are imported from more northerly countries
• Final stop was for dessert. The custard tart was delicious – if you’re going to have a signature pastry then it is a good one to have. The coffee and liquor was not so nice. Even Lisa said the coffee was very strong and didn’t finish hers

Overall the tour was ok, but a long way short of the awesome food tour we had done in Rome.

2 January 2024

Today was a disaster of a day. After having sleep problems the previous day and in Singapore it was even worse today. After going to bed at 9pm I awoke feeling great but that soon turned to frustration when I realised it was only 11pm. No matter what tricks I tried, I couldn’t get more sleep. When Lisa woke at 6 I went for an early morning wander around the Lisbon CBD. The weather was nice and it was interesting to see the early birds of the city who were up at that time.

We had booked a day trip to Sintra to see the Pena palace and then onto the western most point of Europe before a walk in the Portuguese riviera. We debated whether I was ok to go considering my state of sleep deprivation but I (foolishly) thought I would be ok. The plan was to go with the group to Sintra and then if I wasn’t feeling great I could train home after lunch.

The trip to Pena palace took about 45 minutes on the bus. The weather in Lisbon had been nice but the palace had a micro climate due to the large number of tropical trees that had been planted. As we ascended up the mountain to the palace the fog closed in and the weather worsened. Once out of the bus we trekked up stairs to get even higher. With the poor weather there weren’t many views to be seen and the wind and rain combined to make being outside miserable. The exterior of the palace was very nice, from what we could see, but didn’t quite match up to the multi coloured photos (taken on a sunny day) on the internet.

There can be queues of up to three hours to enter the palace but thankfully we only had to wait a few minutes. Inside the palace was ok, but didn’t come close to the Pitti palace in Florence or the palace at Versailles. Everything was a bit bland and there wasn’t much in the way of glamour or opulence. Our guide Gonzalo was very passionate and had lots of information to share which I normally love, but the lack of sleep was killing my motivation to learn. After shuffling through the interior we were given free time to explore outside, although not much could be seen in the fog. Lisa and I decided it was better for me to head back and as Lisa was also feeling rubbish, decided to come with me.

The sleep deprived state was horrible but fascinating at the same time. It was a little like being drunk in terms of motor coordination and slowness of thinking but without the positive aspects of alcohol. I could feel how the thinking part of my brain had slowed down and I couldn’t retain information. Even remembering the town we were in “Sintra” was a struggle. I would spend ages trying to remember it before finally I would have the realisation, then five minutes later I would have forgotten it again. It was good that Lisa came back with me. I probably could have managed it by myself but it would have required a lot more thinking than I could have easily done and it was nice to just rely on her to do the thinking for both of us.

We paid a local €10 for a ride to the train station. Then struggled to buy train tickets. After finally succeeding we discovered the train workers were striking and the next train wouldn’t depart for over an hour and a half. After struggling to find a coffee place in Sintra we just gave up and caught an Uber home. It wasn’t as expensive as I had anticipated and getting back to the city quickly was worth paying for it.

We grabbed some McDonald’s for lunch to keep things simple then I headed back to the hotel for a nap. Unfortunately, while I was very tired sleep still wasn’t happening for me. But I did spend some time lying down and resting which hopefully would still provide some value. While I slept Lisa went to a pharmacy to purchase some Melatonin for me, in the hopes that would improve the situation.

Lisa had been out exploring the Chiado area and so I met her there. We hadn’t had a chance for a hot drink in the morning so we decided to grab one at the very busy cafes sprawled out on the street in the area. My hot chocolate could best be described as a thick pudding with a skin of chocolate on top. It was too rich and too large even for me. The Italians do similar but theirs is a lot smaller and had cream to cut through the richness of the chocolate.

While we were drinking there was a guy singing to music he was playing on his iPhone. He was quite good and entertaining to watch but didn’t get a lot of support from the crowd. At one point a woman came and danced with him which was entertaining. She then passed his hat around and drummed up some additional euros.

The 28 tram is famous in Lisbon as the tourist tram as it goes around many of the interesting sites. Every 28 were had seen had been packed and a guide had recommended the 12 as it did a similar route but was a lot less crowded. We found a 12 tram and tried to use the value on our unused train tickets but were rejected by the machine – which was very embarrassing as we had to do the walk of shame off the tram pushing through the people getting on behind us.

After purchasing proper tram tickets we waited for the 12 but it took forever! Eventually a 28 came by that wasn’t packed and we jumped at the opportunity. The trip was good, heading through Alfama and some other nearby neighbourhoods that we hadn’t explored. The Portuguese parliament in particular was very impressive. The tram is both touristy and a genuine public transit option and would have been more useful for the first purpose with some sort of commentary explaining where it was and what we were seeing. It was weird though as the tram followed a loop but stopped at an arbitrary terminal stop. We got off then just got on the next 28 tram at the front of the queue. The tram did the same thing again later on and at that point we were close to town so we just got off and walked back into the city.

Lisa was very keen for our 5pm beer and we found a Mexican place that was able to do a cerveza for us. We decided to keep dinner simple with some Italian food. It was a bit of a struggle to find an appropriate restaurant that had good reviews and the one we chose was pretty average but the food was edible. Then it was back home for another round of “Matt tries to sleep”.

Overall thoughts on Lisbon

• Very safe city with lots of people around.
• The CBD area is very vibrant and exciting but very touristy. We didn’t get to see much outside the CBD but the outer suburbs we saw from the bus looked a bit rundown
• Lots of nice parks and squares which made the city feel more open and inviting. We got to see a lot of these as they were often the meeting point for tours and walks.
• The earthquake in 1755 came up all the time and it was easy to see how massive an impact it had on all aspects of the city. While it took a long time to rebuild they had a good vision for what the new city would be like and have definitely reaped the benefits of this. We can only hope that the same will be said for Christchurch in the future, but I suspect we haven’t been bold enough!
• The CBD is very orderly with wide open streets and easy to get around. This is very much in contrast to the hilly, narrow and winding walkways through the older Alfama neighbourhood
• There were hundreds of electric tuktuks and classic cars that gave tours around the city. It was quite amazing to see them going up and down the hilly streets. There was always a lot of patience from drivers of all vehicles as they tried to deal with all the trams, buses, cars and tourist related vehicles