And we’re off…first stop Lisbon

To get to Miami for our flight to Lisbon, we had reserved a midsized SUV (“Nissan Rogue or equivalent”) from the Fort Myers airport. Well, they gave us instead a gigantic premium Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Talk about excess!! It got us there, though, and we wound up waiting an hour before they started checking in our flight.
The desk agents were all decked out for Halloween, which was just a bit weird, but fun. We made our way to the Turkish Airlines lounge for a few hours, before heading to the gate for boarding.
We landed in Lisbon at 530, and retrieved our bags, to find one of them pretty mangled. 😦
Got an Uber to the hotel, hopeful that our room might be available early. Nope. So left bags there, and headed out for the first of several 12,000 step days of touring the city.

We found a nearby coffee shop, and got a good caffeine jolt to offset just a tiny bit of jet lag, and set off for one of the iconic Lisbon tourist activities, a ride on the Tram 28.

Easy to see why people line up to ride the quaint yellow tram as it rattles and screeches through the narrow streets of the popular tourist districts of Alfama, Baixa, Estrela and Grace.

These small trams, powered by overhead electric lines, retain many of their original 1930s features, including polished wood interiors, brass dials and cheery yellow paintwork. In any other city, these trams would be housed in a museum, but in Lisbon, they are an integral part of the public transport network.

It’s hilly, and wow, there are some long sidewalk stairs and steep winding streets! It’s amazing how cars people and trams can coexist here, within inches of a calamity, but it seems to work.

We strolled down toward the waterfront through several beautiful plazas before checking into our hotel.

After a nap, we headed out for some traditional Portuguese seafood, before calling it a night.Read more