Well, a few years later (roughly 13!) and I’m back on this blog! Although, travelling now is not just me, but us: I have Jonathan, 9 (very nearly 10) and Joanna, 7 to enjoy it with.
41 is a different time of life to 28. With far less free time, a last minute 3 night / 4 day jolly to Portugal’s capital squeezed between shared parenting, half term and annual leave from full time work, feels like a dream. My first time in the country!
Portugal has always seemed completely unfamiliar and somehow unrelated to any part of my life. Is it the uniqueness of the language? Unsure of a single word in Portugeuse, we diligently dowloaded Duoloingo to give it a go! On the bus from Old Harlow to Stansted, we seem to make quick progress: we show strong skills in translating sentences about the cat and the dog and who drinks milk and who eats bread and is a menino or a menina.
Normally I feel uncomfortable without a sound grasp of the basics, so now I have that sorted – I can relax. 😉
Flights in the middle of the day made the journey less of a chore and more of a pleasure: a) I because can’t manage getting kids up at 4 a.m. for an early flight by myself and b) travelling in the day, makes travelling the activity. A lunchtime flight is very comfortable given we live a bus ride from the airport. Uncompromised by being stupidly tired before we start, we can cruise through the airport processes and spend our time people watching and more Duolingo. In comparison to our half term dash to France last year by car/ferry, the journey itself was relaxing without the fear of having to drive on the right when we disembarked looming over me.
Equipped with a pocket Lonely Planet: Lisbon, we have good intentions to navigate to our hotel by public transport – something I feel internally confident about having a good skillset in! But intentions were dashed when, on arrival, what had sounded like a breeze became a bit overwhelming with bus routes cancelled and just the 9 Euros cash I had found in the garage. Now was the time to play the Uber card and we buzzed off in our lift, soaking up the cityscape at rush hour as the evening came alive.
The booking was 4-star hotel tucked behind the Avenida da Liberdade, a grand, tree lined avenue leading to the heart of Lisbon. Our room, on the 4thfloor, overlooked a suitably ‘you booked this online last minute’ view of disused offices and workmen smoking and shouting at each other. Nonetheless, a room in a hotel is always exciting to kids: what is not to love about a mini bar, free bottles of shampoo, a shower cap in a box (who actually uses those?) and TV playing channels and channels of news and Portuguese cartoons? That evening, excited and wired from a day in transit, we ate late in a busy local Italian, enjoying the first taste of Lisbon’s friendliness and affordability.
Knowing a city has lots to offer and keen to not waste out time here, I did proper research this time and had pencilled out an at least vague itinerary, punctuated by a booking for each day.
Booking 1 = aquarium. On each day I allowed ample time for us to enjoy breakfast, and because you should never rush on holiday. A full continental breakfast will NEVER fail to bring me joy. Especially when actually delivered continentally. A variety of bread and cheese and salami for breakfast? Mortadella and little tubs of butter? YES! Every time! The kids were delighted by endless pastries, sweet cereals, big dispensers of juice and bowls of giant juicy raisins.
Lisbon is compact for a capital city and the 4 metro lines (creatively named yellow, green, blue and red) make for a quick and comfortable blast of subterranean transit. The aquarium is situated near to Orinete station, in a modern district which contrasts to the winding and steep oldness of the Lisbon you picture in your mind. The aquarium was, like most things we did, not expensive. It was also pleasantly uncrowded. Joanna has long been known for her compassion for all things animal related and the marine life in the aquarium brought out her best: Penguins, sea otters, rays and sharks – all amazing.
With the afternoon to play for, we rode the telefrico and traversed the city to iconic Belem – birth place of the famous custard tarts. Belem did not disappoint. We soaked up the history exhibited in imposing stonework and the striking Belem tower jutting out into the Tagur. I told the kids that the way Lisbon is situated at the mouth of a river is like where I currently work on the Thames estuary, careful to emphasise the contrasting levels of beauty. October in Lisbon is like an early English summer; sunny and warm but with regular downpours. We meandered and hid from showers until our feet were finished.
Booking 2: Walking tour. Suitably fuelled by a second session at the buffet of dreams, we navigate ourselves to the start of a tour such of the like I am acquainted to from my days in Berlin. ‘Free’ but you leave a big tip – the point being it is delivered by locals who care and who are passionate. In our case – Jose; slightly fierce in his beliefs yet keen to engage us in the stories he tells. The children were captivated from beginning to end. A highlight was the vivid recounting of the 1755 Earthquake, tsunami and fire; its aftermath and resultant impact on the course of Lisbon’s history. Together with our rabble of German, Australian, American, Canadian counterparts also on the tour, the kids and I stepped over 20K steps that day, without really realising. One of Jonathan’s shoes even fell apart! Despite the discomfort, he saw the whole thing out with minimal grumbling. The rest of the afternoon we spent shoe shopping for him, eating sardines, taking pictures of trams and tiles and drinking a beer (me not the kids) looking out from one of many of the miradouro (view points).
Booking 3: Having a 5 pm flight we were able to squeeze in a final activity. Jonathan has been into football for a few months so, with us being in Cristiano Ronaldo’s home country, I took it as an excuse to do something football themed. I would never randomly visit a football stadium in the UK but at just 30 Euros, I couldn’t see what wasn’t cool about taking Jonathan for a squiz of the Benfica stadium. The 2-hour tour of this 65,000 capacity stadium in north Lisbon, certainly had an impact and gave a different view of the city. Definitely unforgettable.
Unsurprisingly, the flight back was less relaxing than the outward one – we were tired. Sunday evening flights, while appealing for time maximisation, test people’s patience. But a medical emergency on the plane was an experience I had never had! When the cabin crew announced, ‘can we ask that if there are any doctors or nurses on the plane to please make themselves known’, the whole plane gasped and a mood of panic felt not too far away. However, when two medics sitting with their families near us jump into action, I find myself in awe of them and watch gratefully as the situation is brought under control.
On re-entering the UK, despite feeling exhausted, it felt like an achievement to have walked nearly 80,000 steps through Lisbon with two under 10s. A fantastic place and I was proud of how much the kids got out of it. The language lessons with Duolingo are now a firm feature in our house but for now, we are left with only one word: Obrigado!!
