We arrived in Porto late in the afternoon & jumped straight on the train at the airport & zoomed into the city. What an impressive train system.....clean, efficient & cheap. It took us into the centre of town & after a 20 minute walk we arrived at the hostel...well we saw a big, red door with the appropriate number displayed above it. What the hell, ring the bell & hope for the best. A young man answered the door & welcomed us into the hostel like we were entering his home. He carried our bags to our room....a 10 bed dorm....then took us on a tour of the building. A massive lounge room with flat screen TV, DVD's, big fluffy couches & cable TV, a fully equipped kitchen & the room was immaculate...with 2 bathrooms inside the room!! This going to be heaven.
I am ashamed to say, however, that I didn't even leave the hostel for the entire time we stayed in Porto. Unless you count going to get food...from across the road. We did make friends with the local pizza shop...they made our margherita pizza in the shape of a heart!!
I don't have much else to say about Porto...cos I didn't see any of it....what I can say is that on our way out of town on the bus (on the way to Lisbon) I did catch a glimpse of the town & it did look lovely. I feel kind of bad that I didn't make the effort of getting dressed (yes, I spent the entire time in my jarmies - even when going the shops) & having a bit of a wander around town. You need to understand, there was a "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" marathon on MTV & I had a whole season to catch up on!!
So it was on to Lisbon. The bus ride was uneventful...except that the bus driver yelled at me when I tried to carry our small daypacks onto the bus with me, he wanted me to put them under the bus in with the other luggage. There was no way that was happening cos we carry our money, laptop & camera in our little packs, so I just ignored him & climbed on the bus. Problem solved. I did notice him giving me stink eye in the mirror but after a while I just gave it back & I must give it better than him cos he got scared & looked away. So we arrived in Lisbon & again we were blown away by the efficiency of the public transport. In no time we were in the centre of town & negotiating the twisting, winding streets looking for our hostel. It turned out to be easier than we thought & was only a 5 minute walk from the metro.
We arrived in the foyer of the funkiest hostel we have ever seen. We had been impressed by the hostel in Porto but this one really took the cake. It had an old fashioned barber's chair in the corner of the room, a coffee table suspended by wires from the ceiling & a looooooong dining table at the end of the room - big enough to seat about 20 people. WOW! Then we heard the best news of all - they had a luggage lift. Heaven! Then we were shown to our room......painted bright blue with a funky tree design all over the walls & ceiling & a birdcage light fitting hanging down. The best hostel we have stayed in anywhere, ever....& only 15 Euro per night including breakfast. Ohhhh....did I mention the breakfast. We came down on morning 1 & were faced with - freshly made crepes with nutella, scrambled eggs, cold meat, cheese, cereal, fruit, toast......Mmmmmmm!! I could feel my resolve to get out & about in the city starting to falter, especially when we discovered that every floor had a lounge room with comfy couches, books & free WiFi. It boggles the mind how how the rest of the world gets hostels so wrong!
Another great service they offered was a free city walk with one of the guys who owns the place - Antonio. He is such a lovely guy, very friendly & really excited to be sharing his home with us. The walk took in the main sights of the town including a really cute little sqaure called "Tolerance Square". Lisbon prides itself on it's tolerance, not only of different races & cultures but also of all sexual preferences. They are well known as being the gay-friendly capital of Europe. In Tolerance Square, alot of the African immigrants gather every afternoon to sit in the square & chat & share their traditional delicacies with the locals. It was a really lovely atmosphere with all the kids running around playing chasey & having a great time. It was also in this square (at 10am) we tried a local drink called Ginjinha - a kind of cross between port, red wine & ginger, served in a small plastic cup & sipped. Not my cup of tea but Andrew must have liked it cos he went back & had another try the next day!
We also got to see a couple of beautiful churches. One in particular was damaged many years ago by fire. If this was any other European city they would have had the scaffolding up so fast & it would have been completely restored. Not in Lisbon - in fact they did nothing...except replace the roof that had collapsedbecause all the locals were continuing to worship there, without a roof!! Inside the church you can still see black flames marks up the walls & the remnants of charred beams. The most interesting thing was at the very front of the church....a statue of Jesus turned chocolate coloured from the smoke but still proudly out on display.....they really don't discriminate in Lisbon!!
Towards the end of the tour we jumped on an old fashioned tram car for the steep ride up to the flea market. Not much to be bought but a great place to people watch. On the way back down the hill & after jumping off the tram we wound our way through more twisty, turny streets into a residential area. The kind of area where people hang their washing out between the buildings opposite each other & neighbours carry on conversations from top floor windows down to the street. We arrived at a tiny restaurant & were treated to the most amazing local meal. Cod fish pie with vegetables & rice, olives & bread & wine. Delicious! Once we had stuffed ourselves silly we returned to our home (it really felt like home!!), showered & went out to meet Heather & Megs...the Canadians we had met up with previously in Prague & Budapest.
It was fantastic to see them again & to catch up on all their travels in Croatia & Greece...it just means we have now added more places to the "must see" list! We went out for sushi, which turned out to be delicious - despite the the fact that the first thing the waiter said was "We have no tuna or avocado...."...WHAT??? I also had my first sangria, by all accuonts not that great but I didn't mind it. Then it was back to the hostel for cocktails into the wee hours & bed. The rest of our time in Lisbon was taken up by shopping, walking around, more shopping & eating. On the last day we ventured down to the waterfront. Looked lovely from a distance & we were thrilled to see so many fish really close to the sea wall.....well, upon further investigation we realised that they were actually feasting on the raw sewerage that was pumping out into the water...NOT SO NICE!!
Oh, & I almost forgot to tell you about my new friend Pedro. Earlier in the week I had spotted a hairdressing salon just down from the hostel. It looked quite modern & the hairdressers all had great hair so I thought "What the hell!" & booked myself in for a cut & colour. So I arrived for my appointment & was introduced to Pedro. Now Pedro had about half a dozen studs in each cheek, rings in his nose & eyebrows, long, long hair tied back in a bun & he was wearing a headband. Now admittedly, alarm bells should have started ringing then but I just thought he was a bit eccentric. So we sat down & I gave him the whole sob story about backpacking, no hairdryers, camping in Africa etc & asked him to cut it short & into a low maintenance style. Maybe that's where I went wrong. You see without my glasses on I am as blind as a bat so I couldn't exactly see what he was up to. I am also used to having a razer near the back of my head so that didn't bother me....but once it was all over & he triumphantly spun me around in the chair & gave me a mirror to check out his handy work I realised the horrific truth.....he had shaved the back of head....I looked like a boy...for real!! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry so I just paid him, smiled sweetly & ran back to the hostel to show Andrew the damage. Needless to say there was no sympathy there...he laughed & laughed & told me I looked like a proper lesbian now!! At least I was in Lisbon where I would be accepted for who I am - Lesbian or not!!
That night we took our place at the giant table downstairs for one of Antonio's famous "Family dinners". It was amazing & really did feel like a big family all gathered around the table, sharing bread, wine & a massive feast of soup followed by peri-peri chicken & rice then fruit salad. Antonio fussed over us all like a mother hen & made sure everyone had enough to eat & enough wine. Before we knew it the time ticked over to midnight & we hadn't left the table yet. That's just the kind of place it was.
It was with sadness that we left Portugal, it turned out to be the perfect place to rest & recharge our batteries before we left the Continent for Africa. Next time we'll definitely head down south to check out the beaches & sleepy resort towns......I'll just have to make sure that I have a haircut before I go!!
OH NO!!! I can't believe the haircut went badly...you were super excited and this was it before Africa! I love how Andrew had a good chuckle though. Hope you guys are still having a blast and can't wait to hear about your African stories!
ReplyDeleteMiss you,
Megs