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After two weeks in Spain we felt confident that we had experienced much that Spain has to offer. Our next travel dilemma was to head directly to France or make a quick detour to see what Portugal has going for it. Portugal is a small country and for the most part Spain and Portugal have never gotten along. Because Portugal is completely landlocked by Spain the Portuguese were forced to take to the Atlantic Ocean for trade with the rest of the world. The Portuguese sent out many, now well known, discoverers like Vasco De Gamma, Diaz,etc. and found trade routes around the Cape of Good Hope to India and China. The Spaniards not to be outdone by their neighbors sent out a few ships of their own and discovered the Americas. The Portuguese only cared about trading but Spain wanted to conquer the world bringing with it religion and all the gold the ships could carry home. We owed it to Portugal to stop in for a couple days of travel and a bit of cultural discovery.
We checked out of the Hostel Guadalupe our low cost beach accommodation in Torremolinos, Spain. We had plenty of time before our local train to Malaga departed so we decided to eat another meal at McDonalds. The food in Spain is very plain. Not being in a hurry we stopped in a couple of tacky tourist shops and took a few pictures of the coastline. As we approached the top of the city we saw the hotel manager from the Guadalupe running in jeans with his German sheperd. We found it odd that he would choose to run his dog up ten city blocks of stairs. He was looking for us because he had forgotten to give us back our passports or we had forgotten to ask for them. In an effort to catch us he ran all the way to the train station. We are glad he found us because we would not of discovered the missing passports until entry into Portugal. Call it travelers luck!
We had spent the last three days in the Southern part of Spain which meant a train ride back to Madrid and then, my favorite, an overnight train ride to Lisbon, I mean Lisboa, Portugal. According to our map we wanted to go to Lisbon but the train station in Madrid had never heard of the place. We managed to deduce that Lisboa was our destination. One day I will have to figure out why so many countries and cities are called something different by the rest of the world. We call Spain- Spain yet the real name is Espana. We call Germany- Germany yet the real name is Deutchland. The United States is known as Estados Unidos to the Spanish speaking world. It sure can get confusing.
After an all night train the first thing I want to do is check into a hotel and go to sleep. In the long run punishing yourself by trying to sleep sitting up is not worth it. Of course you save time by traveling at night but you miss looking out the window during the day. You save money on a hotel room but you are so tired when you arrive that all you want to do is go to sleep. I vote for no more all night train rides! Our only guidebook information for Portugal comes from "Rick Steve's through the back door." It is a good source of basic sightseeing information but it is not a Lonely Planet. Our original plan was to visit the World Expo 98 "The Ocean and the Seas" hosted in Lisboa but we missed it by a month. So we planned a couple days in Lisboa to update the web site and maybe catch a movie. We had fallen behind on the web site and we would need to check into a hotel that had a phone line. This usually puts you in the three star range for a room and if you are lucky the phone system has been upgraded so you can plug your laptop into the wall jack. Usually the older phones are hardwired into the wall. Our sense of adventure for finding the correct bus to the center of town from the train station was at an all time low so we wimped out and jumped in a taxi.
Taking the taxi was a waste of money because after five minutes and about six dollars we got dropped in the middle of a large square in city center. We decided to check in with the tourist information office for a hotel recommendation. They were very professional and after a couple of phone calls he booked us into a three star hotel for $70 a night. More than we wanted to pay but having a nice shower with hot water, television, phone and most importantly clean sheets was overdue. We have been traveling for over nine months and one lesson we have learned is to take a break every once and awhile and recharge the batteries. We got checked in and I made the mistake of seeing a Pizza Hut sign. If all goes well Karen will agree with my lunch selection, after eating a stuffed crust special we would wander back to the hotel and sleep for twelve hours. The word Pizza Hut was plastered on every corner news stand but somebody forgot to tell them that an address would help. We asked at the hotel and they sent us in the wrong direction which is extremely common. Why can't people simply say "I don't know," instead of sending tourists on a wild goose chase. Two hours later we found Pizza Hut and went home to bed for a well deserved sixteen hour sleep.
Lisboa's glory days were the 15th and 16th centuries when explorers like Vasco Da Gama and Diaz found trade routes to India around Africa. Lisboa became one of the richest cities in Europe. In an effort to out do the grand cities of Spain, Lisboa has extra wide city streets with lots of parks and of course numerous monuments and statues to celebrate their accomplishments. At first glance the heart of the city is unwelcoming and a little dirty. When the sun goes down and the lights are turned on the city becomes a different place. We liked Lisboa much more after dark and an evening stroll was actually fun. I hope Karen doesn't read this part I don't need to encourage evening strolls.
Today we had one major chore to accomplish and an afternoon of sightseeing. Over the past week we have decided to go to Egypt and Israel in December. Not being home for Christmas is going to be hard so the next best thing might be spending it in Bethlehem. We now have to figure out were Bethlehem is. We of course know it is someplace in Israel/Palestine but that is the extent of our knowledge. Without an Egypt/Israel guidebook we are lost and figure it would be worth our effort to get an Egyptian Visa in Lisboa. We jump on a bus for the Egyptian embassy drop off our passports for processing and make our way to the sights of Lisboa. It turns out we didn't need to get a visa because they now issue them at the airport upon arrival.
The embassy was close to the historic Bellem area on the river where all the great explorers departed from and hopefully returned. The first stop is the Bellem tower built in 1515. The tower was built to protect the harbor and today it symbolizes the voyages that made Portugal powerful. Stopping long enough for a photo we move on to our next tourist stop "The Monument of Discoveries." This monument is one of our favorites. It was built in 1960 to honor Prince Henry the Navigator. The monument has the shape of the front of a large boat and the sides are decorated with explorers from Portugal's past. The walkway leading to the monument is a huge map of the world and outlines the numerous Portuguese colonies around the world - it is very clever.
Across the street is the Monastery of Jeronimos. This church was also built in thanks for the discoveries of Vasco Da Gama. In fact Vasco Da Gama has top billing in the church as you walk in he is resting peacefully in an above ground crypt. Walking through the church you get an appreciation of the richness of the past. A special unrelated treat waited for us in the courtyard of the church. The Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit sponsored by Microsoft was on display. The world's richest man Bill Gates purchased the famous backward manuals of Da Vinci a few years ago. A funny thing about being the world's richest man, you don't get that way by being an idiot. Microsoft has created a CD-ROM that contains the complete works of Da Vinci's Codex. What makes this so unique for the average computer user is it allows the codex to actually be read. For whatever reason Da Vinci wrote his entire work backwards and of course in Italian. With the magic of the computer and a little software you can flip the pages in the proper direction and have the work translated to English. The original works were mounted in special UV resistant, climate controlled glass. I think I glanced at the carefully hung and guarded Da Vinci masterpiece but I spent most of my time at one of the numerous computer work stations exploring the work. When this CD-ROM goes on sale Bill Gates will make all his money back he spent on the Da Vinci work.
Our final stop for the day claims to be Portugal's most visited tourist sight, the Coach museum. The Coach museum carries a large collection of guilded horse drawn carriages from the days before the automobile. It was worth the price of admission but not a trip to Portugal. The good thing about finishing all the recommended tourist destinations in an afternoon, you can stop being a tourist. We had a couple days left in Lisboa which meant time for a movie, television watching and just goofing off. The nice thing we found out about Lisboa is that everyone for the most part speaks English. The movies are in English with subtitles and the local television stations show American sitcoms. In Spain no one speaks English and movies and television are dubbed in Spanish.
One evening we decided to look for a little night life and following the guidebook recommendation we found nothing. We did find an group of adults having a birthday party at the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor. It was like watching a room full of kids. This may be Karen's next birthday party. Our next stop was another movie and this time we saw "Something about Mary" it was shown in English and extremely funny. The theater was full and the laughter in the audience made it hard to hear the movie. The best part was the fake intermission. Everyone got out of their seats and ventured to the bathroom and popcorn stand when the movie started playing again. Everyone rushed back in still laughing. We found a good magazine stand/bookstore and spent a few hours reading magazines and looking at books. The store owner obviously didn't know that in American bookstores you can spend the entire day reading and not purchase anything. We figured the dirty looks and snide Portuguese comments when we walked in, meant it would be nice if we purchased something. Karen bought a guidebook for Egypt/Jordan/Isreal and I picked up a couple of costly magazines. Time to leave Lisboa we are starting to spend too much money. Our next stop is only a short one hour train ride to Sintra, home of a modern day castle and life the way it used to be in the old days.
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| This page last changed on 19-Apr-2006 22:16:42 EDT by 70.171.24.221. |
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