Lisbon, Day 2

After you have a great day in Lisbon, what are the plans for the next day? Keep it up and do it all again!

We went for the second walking tour on the other side of town. That meant getting up early enough for breakfast and leaving by 10:30 for the hostel guided tour.

Katherine walking down yet another awesome Poutugese stone sidewalk.

Here is a church that was damaged in the big earth quake of 1755. They keep it around to remember that awful day. It happend 250 miles offshore to the SW in the Atlantic Ocean, and after the quake, the tsunami followed. The town crumbled and burned.

We came upon a renovation of the church. A week or two ago our guide said they found human bones scattered about. This is typical for old churches, but to be able to walk right by the bones would have been cool.

This was a cool view from one of the elevators from the early 20th century. It was built in the same style as the Eiffle Tower.

There are many buildings with tiles on the front. Our guide said it was to lower the heat of the Portugese sun. It has become decorative and a custom followed by the people of Lisbon.

This blue and white flag is the Portugese flag from the time of the monarchy. This flag represented Portugal for 100s of years. Today, Portugal is a parliamentary democracy, but some still long for the monarchy. The picture below is of the Monarchy Party headquarters that still flies the old flag. They campaign in every election. I found this very interesting.

Tram 28, the scenic "tourist" tram that totes passengers up and down the hills of the old part of Lisbon, coming up the steep hill.

More super cool iron work.

Our friend Ollie from New Zealand with some of the street art. It's everywhere.

Katherine enjoying the Portugese stonework found in Portugese speaking countries worldwide.

Lunch: Port wine, sheep's milk cheese and chorizo sandwiches from the market. Can't get better than this!

After lunch we made a quick decision about what to do. We knew that there was a killer awesome cool aquarium to the north. The hostel sold us tickets for a deal and we headed to the metro station. Little did we know, but we were about to see one of the best aquariums in Europe. The metro dumped us off in a huge shopping district which was the site for the World Expo in 1998. The architecture is very impressive and you could easily spend a day looking at the buildings.

 

Vasco da Gama mall to the north.

Our first glimpse of the Portugal Ocenarium.

Super impressive tile work at the Ocenarium.

Puffin action in full force.

Snappers checking us out.

Close up of a starfish.

We just can't get away from the sand tiger sharks.

It was another long, tiring day. We came back to the hostel on the metro, which took about 40 minutes. A group of Americans had arrived from Texas, which provided some comical conversation. We had the Netherlands versus Argentina game to watch while we ate another fine dinner of potato, egg and cod fish casserole. After boring regulation time, then a boring over time, the match ended in a nail biting penalty kick shootout, with Argentina taking the win. The over time put us going to sleep an hour later than we wanted. We planned on rising early to run because of the heat. After 2 long days we could have used a good night's rest, but unfortunately 5 hours of sleep was in our future.

 

 

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