Lisbon; Monday, 19 November, 2007

The first stop of the morning was the castle. We walked over to the bus stop and caught the small bus up to the castle. We spent about an hour wandering around the site, taking in most of the sites that were open, but the weather meant that the views from the battlements and ramparts were not a good as I saw when I last visited.

After a brief stop for coffee we headed down the hill to the cathedral where we had a look around that. From the cathedral we caught the tram down to the centre, and then the newly restored Gloria Funicular up to the São Roque. The church from the outside is very plain, but inside the church is spectacular. Cherubs, gilt, icons, its all there.

From the church we wandered down to the metro station at Baxia and caught the metro out to the Parque das Nações, where we stopped for lunch before having a wander through the gardens and a ride back on the cable car.

We caught the bus back into town and wandered over to catch the tram round through the Alfalma, arriving at the tramstop, and more importantly under the shelter, just minutes before a spectacular downpour sent everyone else dashing for cover, whilst the rain continued we remained on the tram, all the way round to Estrella, where we visited the basilica. After looking around we caught the bus back to the hotel to drop stuff off before heading out to Belém for dinner.