Portugal!

The ascensor "Gloria" - just one of several ways to get around Lisbon's many hills

When I booked our fares to Europe I was offered a 22€ fare to Portugal. I’d always wanted to go to Portugal - I've had the guidebook since 2006, and it seemed like an offer too good to refuse. I didn’t know it didn’t include luggage, a return fare, insurance or sundry other costs which took it up to over $700. The low -cost airlines now have a new wrinkle. They even charge for the emails they send you to tell you that they have randomly changed all your travel arrangements. My German friends and relatives laughed out loud when I told them this. They have all been caught themselves.

While it has long been a problem with the likes of EasyJet and Ryan Air, now even the flagship airlines are doing the same things. It cost granddaughter and I an extra $262, just to be able to sit together on the flight to Europe and almost another $200 to get off in Zurich instead of flying through to Stuttgart. And don’t even mention Customer Service, no one seems to remember what that was about anymore, except perhaps for some of the Lufthansa  ground staff at Stuttgart Airport and some of the Cathay Pacific people on the way home.

This doesn't just happen to budget travellers like myself either. Son, who paid top dollar for his family flights to and around Europe and even booked through a travel agent, also had his flight to Copenhagen cancelled at the last minute and ended up with only one day in Denmark instead of three, and his luggage, when he checked, was in three different countries, though all were eventually reunited. I know we should be flying less, but for Aussies it’s impossible to get out of the country if you don’t and if working, time is a very limiting factor if you want to see a bit to justify the huge expense, though son and family also did quite a bit of travelling by train.

The Joy of Flying

By the time the Portugal trip came around, I was feeling poorly and really wanted to go home, but both my cousin and the insurance agent insisted I should go. They were sure I would regret not going the minute I returned home. My long -suffering cousin -the one with whom I’d been staying, practically put me onto the plane. Apart from the endless queues and the four -hour layover in Bordeaux where you had to be at the airport two hours early so you could recheck your bags in again, the flight itself was uneventful and nine hours later we touched down in Lisbon. When we landed, the pilot burst into song and all the passengers clapped and cheered.

There is another Lisbon of wide avenues and leafy squares, but I didn't get to know that one till later

The view from inside Gloria

Lisbon -An Artist’s City

If by artistic, you mean colourful, utterly chaotic and a bit grubby around the edges, well that’s Lisbon. I stayed in a former nunnery in the old town, sparsely furnished and with some quaint and curious plumbing, but otherwise scrubbed to within an inch of its life with beautiful tiling on the walls, high ceilings and rich wooden floors. Lots of stairs too and alcoves and nooks where you could easily get lost. It took me days to remember to turn left instead of right to find my way back to reception. Both this place and Lisbon itself slowly grow on you. I'll let the story unfold through the photos. 

Inside the New Lisbon. It used to be a Nunnery - sparse but strangely beautiful

It had a few other quirks too, like a bar and a “ballroom” in the basement and outdoor showers in the open terrace upstairs. The breakfast was an even bigger surprise. As well as sugared cereals, cucumber and tomato, there was always bread and cake! The latter was to be a common feature of breakfast throughout Portugal.

Cake and Fruit! All this and cereal and toast too

The outdoor showers

The 'ballroom." Whatever would the nuns have thought of this?

It was hot and sultry in Portugal and it rained often. Not cold rain, but one that made it very humid and its cobbled lanes positively treacherous. Don’t ever try them in high heels. Knocked out by the heat and the flight, I rarely ventured out for the first few days, but finally the need to get some real food drove me to it. While looking for a laundrette I stumbled upon Gloria and couldn't resist a ride. Inspired, I took a ride on Tram 28 the next day. This gives you stunning glimpses of the city while lurching around corners and rattling up and down hills. I'll bet this where people got the idea for roller coasters. 

One of the nicer lanes - no bins and no dog poo

Getting Around

There were three museums in our “street.” Across the way was St. Jospeh's -a former monastery now an ecclesiastical museum, with an effigy of said saint projecting into the street. The lane between us was so narrow that I swear I could almost touch him from my bunk. 

I have the greatest respect for drivers who ply these streets. When you were on the footpath, you could feel their mirrors brush past you ever so gently even after flattening yourself against the wall to let them pass. I half expected that all the cars would be full of dings, but they are in better shape than most of Tasmania’s fleet. Furthermore, a lot of them were electric and Ubers were very cheap. 

Tram 28. Alas, I never got to try one of the little blue and yellow ones which looked even more exciting

  It’s just as well that they were. There were quite a few times when I had to catch one because I was too exhausted to get back up the hill, but more often it was because I just couldn’t find my way back, not even with Google Maps, though they did help a lot. There wasn’t a single cabbie or Uber driver who didn’t have a sophisticated navigation system. It's quite possible that Portugal's homegrown ride share service, Bolt, is cheaper, but had some problem with their App.

There were other assorted ways of getting around too such as the rickshaw taxis, buses and the underground. The rickshaws were more expensive than the Ubers and it took me quite a while to get my head around the arcane subway and its ticketing system. Hot tip! If you keep your ticket from the last ride and top it up, you get a discount on the next one. I wish I'd figured that out before I was on my way back to Stuttgart. 

Rickshaw Taxis await visitors in Rossio Square

 The lanes go off at crazy angles and no one from even a block away has the faintest idea what goes on in the next. Sometimes people were kind enough to walk with me, rather than trying to explain how to get through the intricate maze of streets and stairs and dwellings sprawled over Lisbon’s seven hills. 

Hardly anyone except tourist operators speaks anything other than Portuguese and they get a bit cross if you speak to them in Spanish. According to Chat GPT only 30% of people speak any English but only 11 % speak Spanish. Despite co -operating on a number of fronts -economically and militarily for example, there is still some long standing hostility towards Spain. 

From 1580 to 1640 Portugal was under Spanish rule and had to fight dearly to gain its independence. Later, during the Age of Exploration, the two countries were also in intense competition for territory, influence and resources.

There are also the stairs

Going Down

There wasn’t much green in Lisbon except for the Botanic Garden up the road and trees along a couple of broad avenues and squares. Otherwise there simply isn’t room, but there are grand monuments like the one to the Marquis of Pombal or the one in Martin Momitz Square and every now and then there’d be a flat spot called a Mirador carved out on a hill to allow glimpses across vast swathes of the city or out to sea. 

Painterly ruins of Castelo de Sao Jorge overlook the town near Martim Moniz Square, it was built by the Moors in the C11th but later became a royal residence

Views to the East over Lisbon from Mirador do Parque Eduardo VII

There's always room for a monument. This one in Martim Moniz Square commemorates heroes of the Great War

This one is dedicated to the Marquis of Pombal, a former Prime Minister of Portugal. There were quite a few buskers in this one

A former Prime Minister, The Marquis of Pombal, is revered in street names and squares all over Lisbon and many other parts of Portugal too. He was in charge of the place at the time of Lisbon's great earthquake in 1755 in which 30 -60,000 people died and most of the city was destroyed. He is lauded for his rapid response and for introducing strict building codes to ensure that new buildings were earthquake -proof. He is also credited with inventing the science of seismology – the study of earthquakes, rather than seeing them simply as random acts of God. 

The tile work in the squares - called Calaçada Portuguesa, is interesting too. All the tiles are cut by hand from black basalt and white limestone. You wouldn't want to be that bloke. This one in Rossio Square gives me a headache. Imagine having had one too many and having to walk home over that.

The Tilework in Rossio Square symbolises the sea. Help! I feel seasick already.

I didn't know what to make of this place also near Rossio Square. Was it an amusement centre, a casino? Maybe a place to buy lottery tickets?

Nope! It's actually a sardine shop

Eating and drinking are a major preoccupation for the Portuguese and visitors alike. While the main meal is taken at lunch time, evening meals are a formal event and occur late at night and you had better not be wearing thongs and t-shirts. For younger folk, especially backpackers, it is more likely to be about doing the rounds of Tapas bars, but with both drinking and formal dining being way beyond my budget, I’d fill up on things like empanadas during the day and cook in the hostel kitchen at night.

I met some lovely people that way including Sophia from Australia and Lorena from Switzerland with whom I later did a trip, and in the evening we'd share a glass of free or cheap sangria while listening to a bit of Karaoke - the hostel often had a bit of in -house entertainment, or  occasionally, the melancholy strains of Fado music drifting through the open windows.  

Eating roast chestnuts in the street was more my style. The skins are strangely blue in Portugal

Or pastries and empanadas from a tiny hole in the wall place around the corner

And all the Portuguese custard tarts I could eat

I was quite surprised at the diversity in Portugal, far more than in any other European city so far, although even in places like Germany and Switzerland there was much more than I’d ever seen before. In Portugal‘s case, this was apparently largely the result of a fairly open immigration policy which had existed since 2006. However, this is likely to change in the near future due to policy changes made in June 2024. 

If there was one jarring aspect of Portugal and particularly Lisbon however, it was the great divide between rich and poor, with people of colour doing all that cleaning, while wealthy foreigners did most of the elegant dining or walking pampered dogs in leafy avenues. Meanwhile, local people were being pushed to the margins – the loveless suburbs with narry a tree and only rubbish strewn railway embankments for company.

 Here too, just like any other country I visited in Europe, people complained about the cost -of -living and preferred to blame immigrants, especially the poorer ones, rather than look for deeper causes such as the blows struck to the global economy by the pandemic, wars and a succession of natural disasters. Immigrants have the misfortune of being the most visible group.

I know I didn’t make the best of my time in Portugal. Just surviving took most of my energy. I didn’t  manage to visit its new National Parks as I’d planned to do. Although the warmth gradually seeped into my bones and I started feeling better, the Parks had fallen victim to severe wildfires just a week or two earlier and people advised me not to go there as they had been badly damaged and the danger wasn’t yet over. 

Despite having to abandon my original plans, I did eventually manage to get out of the city and see some other beautiful places which I’ll tell you about over the next couple of weeks -not without some misgivings however. I don’t want them touristed to death. I'm lucky to have been able to see them in their  present state.

  Thank you to both Bing Chat AI and ChatGTP for answering all my questions and being my fact checkers.