Putting it Together

Jet Song.

Uncomplicated airline travel in the twenty-first century is the exception rather than the norm. However, other than the three or four schedule changes Delta made between my initial reservation and my departure, this trip provided one of those exceptions. True, we were a bit late leaving New York but a strong tailwind put our arrival at Humberto Delgado ahead of schedule.

I reached the flat I’d rented, got my orientation to it from the owner’s representative, and promptly set out first to a nearby Pingo Doce to stock up on groceries then to Martim Moniz to find a nearby Asian grocery store. After wandering around for much of the day, I was too jet lagged to cook so I walked a kilometer or so to Antikuario – a wonderful small and almost hidden restaurant for an early dinner.

Antikuario taken in daylight.

The kind owner must have noticed me drifting into periods of semi-consciousness and staring vacantly at the objects on his walls because he came by my table and told me to consider myself family and to sit as long as I wanted. Frankly, I was too tired to avail myself of his kind offer and soon set off back to my flat for a relatively early to bed night.

Friday morning I had my reunion with Ana – something I’d been happily anticipating for some time. Her job for the day was also helping me find the most efficient ways to use the city’s public transportation to reach some of the sights my visitors might want to see. (If you’re thinking, “Couldn’t you have done this on your own?” The answer is probably yes but probably not as efficiently particularly since they were as far apart as Belém, the zoo, and Parqe das Nações – places that are highlighted on the map.)

[From Google Maps]

In addition to having her help with this, she also helped me apply for the long-term Navegante pass that provides me 30 days of unlimited use of all Carris vehicles (except the ferry) within Lisboa for a mere 15 euros. And, of course, when we stopped for lunch at the café at the Zoo, she challenged me to use the Portuguese menu rather than the English. (I did okay with that. Not perfect but definitely okay.)

I spent much of my time over the ensuing days duplicating what I’d done with her to cement those routes in my mind. For places more or less equidistant from two transit stops, I’d arrive at one and depart from the other to find the easiest one. I was also developing different sets of plans based on the interests and physical capabilities of my two sets of visitors as well as finding options for days when the weather might be uncooperative.

Of course, I also wandered to unrelated spots to increase my familiarity with the city – such as making my first visit to Jardim do Torel – one of the less visited miradouros in Lisboa – but one with some expansive and different city views.

On many of my walks I wandered into Alfama and Graça because, as I’d tell both sets of visitors, I often know how to walk (or ride transit) from point A to point B and from point A to point C but I don’t always know the best ways to go from B to C. One important bit of information to keep in mind if you find yourself wandering the streets of Alfama is that if you’re going downhill, you’ll eventually reach the Rio Tejo. Knowing this, I’d often wander eastward before turning south and I’d reach the river somewhere near the Santa Apolónia Station.

Staying close to the river while walking back toward Baixa took me past the Jardim do Tobaco Quay that was once the part of the riverfront where the ships importing tobacco would deposit their goods. It’s now the main terminal for the massive cruise ships like this one

that navigate the river.

And now a rant:

Perhaps it’s a bit of snobbery on my part but I grumble whenever I see one of these behemoths parked at the dock. They usually arrive under cover of darkness and, after their passengers have filled themselves (or overfilled themselves) at the breakfast buffet, they vomit up the population of a small city to crowd the streets of Lisboa.

Some will take a tuk-tuk tour. (Often operated by unlicensed, uninsured, and untrained people, I advise at least looking for an RNAAT number displayed on the back of the vehicle. While this doesn’t guarantee any sort of training, it does provide a guarantee that the vehicle and operator are registered with the government and are insured.) Some will jam themselves onto the 28 Tram – considered one of the touristic must-dos. Some might find their own way to the Sé and the Castelo or out to Belém to see the famous Tower and Monastery and top that by jamming themselves into Pasteis de Belém – the original home of the custard tart that is often depicted as Portugal’s national dessert. (This café is the only one that can use the term pastel de Belém. All the others must be called pastel de nata.) Some might be fortunate enough to book a walking tour with a licensed guide and the particularly lucky ones might have Ana as that guide.

Some will have lunch and others will buy a trinket or two at one of Lisbon’s ubiquitous souvenir shops but I’d venture to say that by 18:00 they’re all back on board the ship ready to gorge themselves on another shipboard meal. At the end of the day, beyond the small tax the cruise lines pay, these folks add so little to the local economy that it probably barely offsets the strain on the population and infrastructure.

But the second bit of my overreaction to all of this happens when I hear people who have completed their dine and dash, hit and run sprint through the city, return to their homes and talk as though they actually experienced Lisboa (or any other one day stop on their cruise.) My indignation isn’t directed at focusing on tourist attractions. There’s usually a reason be it historical, artistic, cultural, etc. that these places attract tourists and I’ll certainly do some of these things and take my visitors to some of these places. However, in my view, spending a few hours in a city like Lisboa allows one to say they’ve been there but little else.

When my family visits, they’ll be here for two weeks. My friends K & P from California will be here for a week. In either instance, if you’re vacationing someplace this is the scenario that should allow you to gain a measure of truly experiencing a place. Even without the assistance of a pseudo-local like me, if you haven’t gotten a feel for a place after this length of time, you either haven’t been paying attention or you’ve overly constricted the bandwidth of your activities.

I had occasional conversations with M, the older of my visiting grandnephews, about these distinctions. Here’s a partial list of things we did while they were here:

Attended a Benfica soccer game;

went to the Winter Wonderland and Estufa Fria;

strolled the Avenida da Liberdade; cruised the Teju for New Year’s Eve fireworks;

rode the Gloria funicular and had hot chocolate at the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara; walked the neighborhood of Chiado and stopped in the Livraria Bertrand (the world’s oldest bookstore); rode the 28 Tram from Campo de Ourique to Martim Moniz; spent a day at the zoo; saw the Bordalo II Cat 

and rode the telecabines over the river at Parque das Nações; visited the Castelo and saw Swan Lake at the Coliseu; had a walking tour with Ana and visited the National Coaches Museum and the Imersivus Gallery at Mae de Agua; rode the bus through several neighborhoods (during which an older woman chattered away in Portuguese at B – an incident we all enjoyed but none of us understood) to visit the Oceanarium. Finally, on their last day we went to the Botanical Garden,

walked through the neighborhood of Principe Real, and took our last Metro rides to and from the Jardim Bordalo Pinhero.

And this is a partial list of what we did only in Lisboa. It excludes our day trip to Sintra and overnight jaunt to the Algarve for a boat tour of the Benagil Caves.

I told M that if he talked to 1,000 Americans who have visited Lisboa he probably wouldn’t find five who had seen the parts of Lisboa that we saw on their last day let alone over the entire two weeks. There’s a lot left for them to see. Hell, there’s a lot left for me to see. But the friends and family who visited me can legitimately say they’ve not only seen Lisboa but they have a sense of the city and, I think, its people.

All my pre-family photos are here.