Thursday, May 24, 2007

Olissipo

We took the overnight bus to Lisboa and arrived this morning at 6 local time, which is an hour earlier than Spain. We dropped off our luggage, had some breakfast and started our walk around town. I felt completely lost without my guidebook since I only bought one for Spain and the young man at the check-in didn’t speak any English to be able to tell us where to go. I was barely able to pay for my room with a tiny bit of broken Spanish I know. Luckily, we were very close to the Plaza de Commericio where all the tour buses take off. Having never been onto one of those I figure it was about time. We got a two-day unlimited ride pass for 30euros and hopped one of the big blue double deckers. It felt surprisingly reassuring to be on a tour bus, much less stressful than walking around and checking my map constantly. I soon found out that it was impossible to take good photos on the bus and being tired from the overnight ride, I started to fall asleep every few minutes! Finally we decided to get off the bus around the Belem district to snap some pictures of the Discoveries Monument (Monumento a los Descubrimientos) and the Belem Tower (Torre de Belen). We went into the tower for a quick look. It wasn’t until then did I learn that it was actually used as a military complex designed by 16th century architect Francisco Arruda. From the size of it, I’d be surprised if it could fight off 50 enemies. The top of the tower offered a nice view of the bridge and the city of Lisboa. Later we took the bus to Jeronimos Monastery for some delicious grilled fish in a fancy little restaurant called Rosa del Mares.














Since we were there already, I had to poke my head into the cathedral and found Vasco de Gama's tomb inside.








The afternoon was spent with more naps on a smaller red tram tour but the rough ride going up and down the slops startled me every now and then. At one point near the end of the tour I looked around and noticed that a good half of the people were dosing off as well. There was a stunning Italian lady with Audrey Hepburn eyes who I probably spent more time looking at then the whole Lisboa. She humored us by tickling her husband in his sleep. After going back to the hostel I took a shower and completely passed out by 8pm. Making it the second 12-hour sleep I’ve got on this trip.

No comments: