Lisbon; Friday, 18 August, 2006

Having spent a large proportion of the night being woken up on a regular basis by a car alarm I was in the need to something to properly wake me up. The croissants at breakfast did the trick with their almost 100% sugar content! After coming down off the sugar high I headed off to the Praça do Comércio to catch the sightseeing tour.

Lisbon has open-top sightseeing buses, but they also have sightseeing trams and it was this that I caught. The tram, an original from the 1960’s goes round the city up and down many of the hills that the city is built on, and past large numbers of the main sights including the castle and cathedral.

After finishing the tour I caught the normal tram back along to the top of one of the hills to take in some of the views of the city. I spent some time taking pictures from the various view points near the castle before heading the short distance down the hill to the Cathedral.

The cathedral is striking for it’s look. If you didn’t see the large rose window in the centre you would be convinced that from the front it was a mighty fortress or castle, even the towers are crenulated! Inside the cathedral is quite dark, with not much to see, but for a charge you can go out into the cloister at the back, which has been dug up to reveal over 2000 years of settlements, with Roman streets underneath Moorish dwellings.

I would like to claim that I wandered the short distance up to the castle, but I am lazy and it is quite a steep hill, and I am on holiday, so I caught the bus! The castle is perched on the top of castle hill and has stunning views over the city centre and surrounding countryside. Inside the grounds the shell of the castle is all that remains, but you can climb up the ramparts for further views over the city. There is also a small multi-media exhibition on the history of Lisbon.

I caught the bus back into the centre of town and wandered out to Cais do Sodré station to catch the train along the coast to Cascais. The town is effectively Lisbon-on-Sea and has miles of stunning beaches. Just outside of the town centre the landscape changes to small cliffs, and slightly further on is the Boca do Inferno, literally “Mouth of Hell”, a square opening in the cliffs which has been warn away by the waves which sucks water in forces it back out again with spectacular results.

After catching the bus back to Cascais station and the train back into Lisbon it was time for a spot of dinner and then I caught the tram up into the Bario Alto or upper old town to have a wander in the twilight and early night before catching the funicular back down to the lower town and the tram back to the hotel.