Thursday, December 16, 2010

Lisbon

Finally, there is some certainty amongst passengers on this cruise - and that certainty (at least amongst the Australians onboard that I spoke to last night ) is that everybody wants to come back to Lisbon/Portugal sometime. I had a feeling that we were going to enjoy this final port - from things that I had read in various tourist blogs, etc - and we did.

For the first time, we took a shore tour that took us out of the main Capital city into quieter, more rural areas - but also managed to get a few hours in the city itself, thanks to a shuttle bus put on by P&O.
This was a good combination. It was still quite dark when we arrived around 8AM - and as dawn broke,
it looked like it was going to be a lovely day. But - it didn't take long for a heavy river fog (River Tagus) to fill in and by the time we left the ship around 9AM, it blocked any view of anything over 100 metres away. Our bus tour, however, took us out of the city to the old Royal town of Sintra in the hills and to the Royal town/fishing village of Cascais on the coast (these were about 30 klms from Lisbon). The fog lifted and we had a beautiful, clear, still and sunny morning. As usual, the visits were rushed and we could have stayed at least a week in each place - but it was a very enjoyable tour. When we returned to Lisbon in the early afternoon, the fog was still there - probably even thicker - however it gave the City a lot of "atmosphere". We all enjoyed the feel of the place - not as big, busy or polluted as other places we have visited. For the first time, we also started to feel some Christmas spirit - with chestnut sellers cooking their nuts on street corners and Santa Clauses driving the dinky little trams. It was a poor day for photography today (for me and my basic camera) - I think I may buy a better one when we reach London. I have a caught a heavy head cold - which seems to be spreading around the ship, so was feeling poorly by the time evening arrived. It appears that a group of 6 of us (Aussies) have booked a large taxi to take us all to our individual destinations in London. This has been organised by P&O - and will save us a lot of effort to bypass getting a taxi to Southampton train station, the train to London and then another taxi at the other end - especially if the weather is poor when we arrive. .

EDIT - one thing about Lisbon that does need to be said - is that we have subsequently heard of a number of pickpocketing incidents amongst passengers- with a number having purses stolen. It appears that the thieves are very well organised and work in unison, with a spotter co-ordinating the pickpockets. As far as I know this is the first place that this has happened during Oriana's World cruise

You can view a Youtube video about our visit to Lisbon here

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