
Mark in Lisbon’s Cathedral
And finally our last stop on this Portugal Explorer was Lisbon, the capital and largest city. There is a lot to like about Lisbon – some great food, a top-notch boutique hotel, beautiful architecture, important history – but somehow it didn’t grab me as much as most European capitals do, or even as much as Porto did on the start of this trip.
Perhaps it’s just that we got off on a bad start. We returned our rental car on arriving in Lisbon and it was just an awful experience. Filling the gas tank on the outskirts of the city was ridiculously challenging – it probably took 15 or even 20 minutes, just extreme inefficiency. And then we were supposed to return it to a Europcar location in the city and when we go to the address there was absolutely no sign of a car return. We drove around a couple times but nothing. We tried to call the help number the agency gave us when we picked the car up and repeatedly just got a recording (in Portuguese so we had no idea what they were saying). Eventually we decided to try a ramp to … something underground … and sure enough, there it was. A sign outside would have helped.

The Palácio Principe Real, our glorious hotel for three nights
From there things got better. Our hotel was an 18th century palace that had stood empty for some 15 years before the owners, Gail & Miles, started restoring it and turning it into a hotel. It’s almost hard to believe that this the first (and last, they assure us) hotel they’ve ever done. It’s as though they had traveled the world, found all the little niggling mistakes that other hotels make, and corrected them all. The grounds were beautiful with a heated pool and very pleasant places to read and relax, and breakfasts were great.
There were some nice neighborhoods to wander around in but surprisingly there weren’t any great museums or cathedrals that you just had to see. One of the highlights of the city is the area called Belém, much of which was built out when Portugal was a rising imperial power so it has all that massive architecture displaying the now-spent glory that was once Portugal. Mark and I went down to look around but ultimately we didn’t actually do much.

Mark in front of the Monument of Discoveries in Belém, celebrating Portugal’s role in the 15th and 16th centuries Age of Discovery. When we got to it I realized the monument is literally the only thing that I remembered from my one visit to Lisbon 20-plus years ago.
The other highlight for us was that our NY friend David – last seen a few days ago at the wedding – came to Lisbon while we were there and stayed at our little boutique hotel. We have somewhat different schedules – he would be finishing breakfast as we were getting ready to go to lunch – but it was fun going to dinner with him and just spending way more time than we normally would in New York. But then it was Saturday morning and time to go to the airport – our little trip through Portugal was great fun, but now it was over.

The view of our courtyard from our hotel room. And while I didn’t get any great pictures of our friend David, that’s actually him sitting on one of the chairs at the pool talking to Mark.

Lunch at a great tapas restaurant on our last day

In keeping with our experiences in both Porto and Coimbra, Lisbon was pretty hilly with a lot of steps. I learned during this trip that the kene tendonitis I suffered with for well over a year was really, truly gone – if all this elevation didn’t cause it to flare up nothing will.

The former Jerónimos Monastery in Belém dating from the early 16th century. It was built near the site of Vasco da Gama’s first voyage linking Europe to Asia via the ocean. It now houses his remains along with those of several former Portuguese kings.

Mark in front of the Belém Tower, a 16th century fortification that marked the embarkation point for Portuguese world explorers

The Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

Just a cool Lisbon street. We found Lisbon somewhat grittier than most Western European cities we’ve visited. It had an aura of faded glory that was beautiful at times and a little sad at other times.

Lunch on arrival at our beautiful hotel

And breakfast

While the port of Lisbon remains an enormous work area – really cutting off the city from the mouth of the Tagus River – this area for sailboats was prettier

Beautiful and tasty sirloin at a cool Indian tapas place called Gunpowder

Mark at lunch savoring some octopus in front of him and a really great bottle of Portuguese wine

And random bears inside a random doorway