This year
for our Easter Holiday we decided to go on a road trip to Lisbon, Portugal,
stopping for one night in Toledo on the way, to break up the drive and to see
this special spot. It turned out that on
Tuesday April 15th Anatolijus had meetings in Madrid and with our
Easter holiday beginning the next day we made a plan to meet in Toledo. So at 12pm as Grace, Tessa and I drove into
the train station of Toledo watching Anatolijus’ train pull in at the exact
same time. We couldn’t have planned it any better with us driving 3.5 hrs from
Zaragoza. The first beautiful thing we
saw was the train station which is in the Mudejar (Muslim) style and is
exquisite with its tiles and ornate ceiling.
The weather was beautiful and perfect to explore this ancient town that
sits on a hill with the river Tagus winding around it on 3 sides. Toledo was made a World Heritage Site in 1986
and was a place where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together. This year Toledo is hosting the largest
exhibition of El Greco works however we weren’t able to see it as it was sold
out months before. This was good because
instead we spent our time walking the narrow streets and experiencing the charm
and energy of Toledo. The Cathedral is
very impressive (where we did see el Greco’s “Unrobing of Christ”) and we loved
the picturesque Bridge of Saint Martin.
We had the best pork tenderloin ever sitting outside on a lovely
terrace. Although we only had half a day
in Toledo we felt very happy with our experience in and were excited to leave
early the next morning to drive to Lisbon.
The best
laid plans….it is important to note in this aside that with all the travelling
we have done we have rarely had any problems or travel nightmares.
In January, when Anatolijus was on the couch having injured
his back and we had yet to receive any medical help and didn’t know the
severity of the situation, we booked our accommodation in Lisbon through
Airbnb. We were very excited because it
was a beautiful apartment in Alfama overlooking the Cathedral. The day before we were to arrive in Lisbon, Anatolijus
called the owner of the apartment to say we had not received the check in
information and the owner said he was surprised as he had sent the email to us
and would resend it. We went to bed and
set our alarms for 7am. I woke up and
checked email and was happy to see an email from Airbnb, unfortunately instead
of providing check in info the emailed said,
“We're really sorry but we've had an electrical problem in the building
of the apartment and we've had to cancel your reservation.
The building is now running on backup generators with only minimum power
usage, we have works underway to replace the problematic electrical column
which makes renting the apartment impossible.
We know we can never compensate for having to cancel your stay but we've
tried to find an alternative without any success.”
In my sleepy haze I really thought it was a joke or I was misreading the
email. Five hours before we are to
arrive they cancel our reservation which we paid for in January and it is the
start of the long Easter Weekend!!!! Also
we had called the day before and no problem was mentioned? We were suspicious and very upset. Also our friends Natalia and Emiliano from
Zaragoza were on their way to meet us in Lisbon. I woke Anatolijus up and said,
“we have a problem”! We knew we couldn’t
leave Toledo until we had a place to stay and the prospect of returning home
was very depressing. So the girls and I
went down to the buffet breakfast while Anatolijus worked his usual magic and
after 3.5 hours was able to secure us a new apartment for more money, but at
that point it didn’t matter. So at 11:30am we left the hotel and began our 5.5
hour drive to Lisbon. The good news is
that our new accommodation and host were fabulous and we gained many amenities
and an amazing view overlooking the city.
Lisbon – we loved it!! It has the
feeling of San Francisco, Vancouver and St. Petersburg combined. The view from St. George’s Castle is fabulous
and a great place to have an overview of the city. The main square at the water is beautiful and
we had a great day walking the promenade to the Belem Tower, seeing the
Monument of the Discoveries and the outside of Jeronimo Monastery. Lisbon is famous for their very old wooden
trams so we got up early one morning and went to the first stop to secure a
seat on Tram 28. The day before we
waited at a stop as 4 or 5 trams went by completely full. We were delighted to be the only ones aboard
(see the pics) and it is a very scenic ride going down narrow streets and
through different neighborhoods. The second
day we drove to Sintra and toured the Pena Palace which is perched way up on a
hill. Following that we went to Cascais
for lunch and it is a gorgeous seaside town with great restaurants and
shopping. We later drove down the coast
to a fabulous beach and the drive reminded us of parts of Hawaii we have
visited. The Atlantic Ocean is not warm
but the kids, and Emiliano, played in the waves and had a great time. There were also lots of surfers riding the
waves here.
One of our favorite experiences happened the first night when our
friends came to meet us for dinner. Our
host had recommended we eat at the local restaurant at the end of our street,
small and very authentic. Natalia called
from the taxi to ask for the name of the restaurant so we looked out the window
and saw it was called Tofa. We also gave
her our street name, but as the apartment is new the taxi driver didn’t know
it, and the restaurant name turned out to be unhelpful as well. We discovered that Tofa is a brand of coffee
like Illy or Starbucks and is on every second awning. Specific cultural references are so
great. So our friends arrived and we
walked to the place but with nine of us and only 6 tables, 2 were occupied, it
didn’t look like we could stay. Then
Alfredo, the owner, indicates for Natalia to follow him into the back. When they returned she says follow us so we
walked behind the bar through the kitchen into a room with a plain table and
old TV set – perfect! We ordered fish
for the adults, as Lisbon is famous for their bacalao (cod), and plates for the
children that included grilled meat, rice, fries and salad. We all drank wine and finished with coffee
and port. Alfredo was wonderful and we
felt like we had made a new friend. Now
the best part is the bill. The cost of dinner for 9 of us including 2 litres of
wine was an astounding 62 euros!!!! We
had been told Portugal was much cheaper than Spain and, out of the tourist
areas, it definitely is.
On Sunday our friends had to leave so we had a quiet morning waiting out
the rain then drove back to Cascais to go to a new vegetarian restaurant that
had only been open 2 days. It turned out
to be our favorite meal and the owner and staff made it very special and we
talked with a woman from Brasil… On the
way back we stopped at the Museum of Modern Art which was excellent and were
able to also enjoy some of the famous Pasteis de Belem – a pastry with cream –
which are very famous and quite delicious.
On our last day in Lisbon we toured the different famous neighbourhoods
starting with Alfama which is the old Muslim quarter. We were also interested
to go and see how the ‘electrical work’ was going at our cancelled
apartment. To our surprise (not) there
were no works underway and we went to the café located in the same small
building and inquired if there had been any electrical problems, had they seen
work trucks etc. They said they did not
know of any problems confirming our suspicion that it was a made up story. We were able to enjoy a lovely lunch in the
café and tour the cathedral and felt fortunate that we landed in the apartment
we did. We also visited the most
expensive chapel in Europe, Chapel Roche, it is made of gold and the pictures
are all mosaics although they look like regular paintings.
We found Lisbon exceeded our expectations and once we were home we were
very fascinated to learn more about Salazar, the benevolent dictator. And also the amazing natural disaster of 1755
that started with an earthquake that spawned a tsunami that ended with fires
destroying most of the city. What took centuries to build was destroyed in 12
hrs and Portugal never regained its former power or glory. Our drive home went very well and it was 9
hrs door to door including two short stops.
It was great to explore and new place and after having spent part of the
winter and spring in the hospital and rehab it was a very refreshing and
energizing holiday.
P.s. Once we
got back home, Anatolijus contacted Airbnb.
To redeam our experience, the company paid the difference for our accommodation
extra cost and gave us 200 USD voucher towards our next booking. So in the end even the booking nightmare was
redeemed.
