We Never Stop! Lisbon Day 2

BACKBLIP and Diary of trip

After us both sound asleep by 930pm the night before, we were awake and raring to go by 6:30am!  We opened the curtains and were met by a beautiful sight, the sunrise of deep red spread across the horizon of the River Tegus.  Such a fabulous view.  Dressed and down for breakfast at 7:10!  Lovely window seat in the restaurant overlooking Oriente station - very futuristic, designed for Expo 98 which was hosted in this very area we are staying.

It's a handy location as we are out of the hotel, and 1 minute later we are downstairs in the station waiting for the metro!  We are on the red line, but to get to our destination of Martim Moniz, to pick up the iconic No 28 tram, we need to go green!  Six stops further on we change at Alameda, off and up the escalator, short wait and we are on the green line:-) Lots of early morning commuters, and it's busy, but every single person wears a face mask, unlike the d*ckheads here, which I'm sure I've spoken about already.  It's mandatory here and folks just get on with it.  Anyway, off we got at Martim Moniz, where we stayed with the family in October 2017 in a beautiful flat overlooking the castle.  Not surprisingly, at 8:45, there wasn't a queue for the tram, this is it's starting point and we were first on.  We were soon rattling round the streets, straining up the hills towards old Alfama and I felt joy in my heart being back here, the sun shining and feeling the atmosphere of this old city.  I love it!  We hopped off at Assembleia thinking we would nip to the best ice cream shop ever but should have checked earlier as it didn't open till 10 am!  Right, quick change of plan, we would go over the river Tejo to Christos Rei (Big Jesus) and see the April 25 Bridge close up and the view of Lisbon from Cacilhas.  Before that though we popped into to Time Out Food Hall as I knew there was an ice cream stall in there so we wandered over and ordered but as I went to fish out my euros she said card only, all of Time Out is card...... ok, no ice cream as no card..... Well I do have a credit card but no travel card as I had only booked this last minute and no time to order one and I'm not keen on getting hit with the credit card charges for using abroad.  Poor Ben is not lucky with ice cream HAHA!

Walked over the road to the big travel hub of Cais do Sodre and zapped our travel card (the Viva Viagem card you load up with money at various stations and can be used for ferry, trams, buses and surface trains - fabulous transport links).  Ferry arrived and 15 minutes later we were over the river.  I asked someone about a bus up the hill to the statue and they gestured to the tram waiting, I checked with a young lady and she confirmed yes, this was the tram.  Then I realised when on it I had to idea what stop to get off on but then the same lady came up to us and said to follow her off at this particular stop then she walked with us and showed us the route, so kind and helpful, I was grateful as I wouldn't have got off there.  We could see him in the distance, but first we stopped at a Cafe and Ben had his favourite the freshly squeezed orange juice.  Passed by a vaccination centre and saw all the oldies waiting to get their boosters.  Vaccination rates are high in Portugal.

Ben was amazed when we reached the statue just how large it was.  It's such a stunning location, high up and Lisbon, over the river was sparkling in the sunshine, planes were flying quite low too, heading for the city airport, we came in this flight path yesterday!  Next was the lift up the the top of the statue to get yet higher views!  Fabulous:-)

All this by 11.30!  Off we wandered to the bus stop (I remembered this part from May 2017)  but as we sat a tug tug lady appeared asking if we wanted to hire down to the port for the ferry back.  Of course Ben wanted to so it was a 10 euro trip rattling down the hill and we were in time for the next ferry just leaving.  15 mins later we were back in the Cais do Sodre and next stop was getting a Tram 15 outside for LX Factory, a former industrial area which has been created into a foodie and creative haven - but I'm with an 11  year old so it was burgers and chips, but good ones!  We then walked round to Pilar 7, quite a new attraction which takes you up in a lift to a level of the 25 April Bridge, but unfortunately the lift was broken - aargh!  Walked back to get the tram 15 to get the tram back to Oriente from Rossio.  

We decided we would go the the Oceanarium  which was nearby our hotel. It was now 5pm and still fuelled by the burgers and chips we headed there. What a place!  It is one of Europe's largest and has around 8k fish and marine animals!  The main feature is an enormous central tank with sharks and rays and sunfish and ones I forget the names of.  There are re creations of various eco-systems like the Antarctic tank with little penguins and birds flying about and the Pacific tank with rescued sea otters bobbing about in the rock pools.  There were separate windows looking into tropical fish, it was if you were scuba diving.  It was very educational and very impressive building.

By the time we got out it was 7pm and we went into the massive shopping centre which has a top floor food hall and chose one of them to eat from.  Ben chose the Golden Arches UGH!  HAHA

All the Christmas decorations were up the the shopping centre and Christmas music was playing......

No swimming in the pool this evening we were back and chatted and then out like lights.

23,971 step count....