March 27
We haven’t posted the last few days as not much happened. Saturday Lynn had a hair appointment while Peter went to a nearby town for market day.
Then in the afternoon we drove to the marina and walked on the beach for a few minutes. There was a cold wind off the Atlantic, so we picked up some pretty seashells and headed back to the condo.
On Sunday we took a day trip out to Silves and Foia, the tallest point in the Algarve. It was cloudy on the coast, but it cleared up as we headed into the hills. In Silves we toured the castle then had a nice lunch in the square.
Yesterday (Monday) was a travel day. We drove back to Lisbon stopping at FedEx to mail a box of stuff home and at the Doubletree Hotel to drop off our stuff before taking the car back to the airport.
Then we took a bus back to city center where we strolled down the pedestrian street and had a delicious dinner. The weather has turned quite nice, it was in the upper 60s and sunny in Lisbon. What a change from 3 weeks ago when it poured every day.
Today, we had a lovely day. We went back to Belem to see the things we missed the last time. Peter went when we were here before but that was the day Lynn stayed home and out of the rain. He didn’t see that much that day either as it was raining so hard, he didn’t want to stand in line to buy tickets. But today was a 180 from 3 1/2 weeks ago. It was a beautiful day…70 and sunny.
Our first stop was the Coach Museum. They had dozens of old coaches on display, some were used for ceremonial purposes and others were for everyday use. It was quite interesting. Here are some pictures of the different types of coaches.
These are used mostly for ceremonial purposes.
This was a type of litter that is hooked to four horses.
Coaches for the royal kiddos.
Coach for everyday use.
For mail and passengers. It took 34 hours to get from Lisbon to Porto. It stopped 23 times to allow passengers to rest and to change horses. We drove from Lisbon to Porto in about 2 1/2 hours.
After the museum we walked to the Jerónimos Monastery which is the #1 tourist attraction in Lisbon. The line was crazy long, so it took over an hour to get our tickets. While in line, we took turns visiting the church which was free and had no line. It was built in the gothic style and was very simple but nice.
When we finally got into the Monastery, it was a little disappointing. It was built in the 15th and 16th centuries and the architecture was beautiful but there really wasn’t much to see. The building was a large square with a courtyard in the middle. There were only two rooms open and those had exhibits, one explaining the history of the Monastery and the other honoring the life of a Portuguese writer. We thought there might be different rooms with tapestries, paintings, etc., like we’ve seen in other places. But there was nothing like that. There was one large room that had pretty tiles but that was about it. We actually stood in line longer than we stayed but we can cross it off our list of things to see in Lisbon.
By this time, it was almost 4pm so we headed to a nearby restaurant for a late lunch. We decided to split a pizza so we could have dessert. They had amazing ice cream sundaes that we didn’t want to miss. Of course, after having pizza and ice cream we needed to walk off some of those calories, so we walked to the Torre of Belem which was about a 1/2 mile away. It was a beautiful stroll down the waterfront, but we were getting tired so after taking a few pictures we headed back to the tram. Once we got to the city center, we couldn’t find the stop for the bus we needed to get back to the hotel, so we took a cab instead. Taxis are very inexpensive here so it only cost about a euro more than the bus tickets would have cost. And we got to the hotel much faster.
Tonight, we’re just relaxing as we have a very early morning tomorrow. We have a taxi coming at 4:15am for our 6:20am flight to Orly in Paris. It looks like we’re leaving the nice weather behind as the long-range forecast for France is rain, rain and more rain. We’ll keep the umbrellas close and hope for the best.
We’ll let you know how it goes. Love to all.