Moving on to Lisbon

It wouldn’t be us without another drama. This time it was about a mislaid passport (mine). I missed it during the night, and we spent a frantic hour or so searching for it this morning until Carl eventually found it — stuck inside the sleeve of my jacket, of all places!

We left our fabulous Porto apartment at 11:00 and had some problems finding somewhere with room to stop for coffee. We finally found a place that quite accidentally turned out to be on the route of the number 207 bus which ends its run at Campanhã station, where our high-speed train to Lisbon leaves from. We stood waiting for it to show up for much longer than the timetable said we needed to and finally had to give up and call an Uber, which I was very reluctant to do because I don’t at all like their work practices. Still, need must …

The train was okay, but nowhere near the terrific experience we had going between Madrid and Valencia a few years ago, It hit a top speed of 220 km/h and tilted rather dramatically from side to side as it went round corners at speed. The journey took three hours and we reached Lisbon at 4:30-ish.

Our Airbnb check-in was pretty disastrous. The door to the building was decrepit and covered in graffiti, which was off-putting enough, but the apartment turned out  to be hugely disappointing and our meet-and-greet experience was a disaster, without any of the usual marking up of a map with recommendations for places to visit and eat and drink in. Indeed, there wasn’t even a map anywhere in sight. Fortunately we’ve been to this part of the city before, but we would have really been at sea otherwise. Watch this space for developments on this front.

We ventured out eventually and tried in vain after hours of effort to find anywhere to eat in until Carl went off to investigate the neighbourhood and returned triumphant. Our meal in a gloriously old-fashioned place just off the square we were based on 13 years ago was wonderful. They only have entrecôte and a vegan alternative to choose between, with a couple of starters to keep the main course company, with the virtually nonexistent menu didn’t matter at all. It just seems to be called EB, though it’s hard to be sure. The important thing was that it made up for the huge disappointment with the apartment.