Lisbon, Portugal 17-19 January 2016

So after Seville, we were a little sick of Spain. I think the final straw was Drew ordering fish and chips and ending up with fish and boiled potato fried into a mash with egg and onion and served as a yellow mound on a plate.

We decided to hightail it out of Spain and booked an overnight bus from Seville to Lisbon, Portugal. Big mistake. HUGE mistake. Horrible 5 hour journey which began at midnight and ended at 5am in the pitch black zero degree Lisbon. Only 4 passengers hopped off that bus in Seville. Not sure where everyone else was headed, but they took off pretty fast once we were dumped on the sidewalk. Daylight is around 8.30am and siesta is still part of the culture of Lisbon (meaning shops open about 10am) so we had a while ahead of us before we could see or the shops began to open. We were completely broken now. Seville...then this.

Our original plan was to look around the city all day to find nice accommodation in a good area, but 3 hours into the hideous bus journey I had changed my mind and booked some luxury accommodation overlooking the water. It was 5am, so we relented on our public transport only policy and caught a taxi to the hotel. Check in wasn't until 2pm but I figured if we showed up at 5am and looked forlorn, then they'd let us pay for an extra night's accommodation and we'd have somewhere to sleep for a few hours until dawn. The bus journey had been particularly gruelling on me. I'd left my favourite scarf in the bus as well. 

Luck wasn't on our side. No rooms available at 5am, so we asked if we could leave our bags in the hotel and we headed out (were shown out) into the 5.30am Lisbon night. It was freezing. First thing we did was search google maps for a McDonalds. 10 minutes of trudging up and down slippery hills later we were in one of the main plazas. It was Sunday (and this was siesta-ing Lisbon, and not a shop was open - including McDonalds. Just a few groups of unattractive teenagers making their way home from their night in the club.

We sat in the freezing pitch black plaza huddled against a statue in an effort to reduce wind chill factor. After about an hour Drew suggested we seek cover in a nearby underground train station to get warm. That's when I got the great idea to head to the airport. Airports are warm and have coffee shops, newspapers and toilets. I desperately needed to open my bowels and Lisbon, like the rest of Europe, just doesn't seem to believe that the general public produces waste. 

We ended up staying at the airport until about 2pm. I never realised how nice airports are. Toilets aplenty. It's an entirely different space when you can just sit and relax and not worry about missing a flight. We read english newspapers, did some shopping, bought a book about Lisbon and had a bit of a read. It was so warm and cosy compared to where we'd been that we found it difficult to leave.

We checked into the Memmo Alfama Design Hotel later that afternoon, 26 hours since we'd last showered. It was magnificent compared to the hotels we have been used to. We were probably the only two people in the hotel not on our honeymoon, but that didn't matter.

Lisbon is very pretty. Hilly and pretty. Small winding streets. It was the best city we've been in for buying nice things to take home. Bought myself a lovely angora jacket. China and tiles and interesting nick-knacks. Great photo opportunities. Cute trams. Worth a 2 or 3 day look.