Lisbon day 4

Thinking of having a bit of a lie in but it got the better of us so jumped online and bought tickets to visit the Castle of St George, one of the highest points in Lisbon. So as our hotel is at sea level every road leads up, and this was no exception. Well worth the climb though, with fantastic views from all round the castle. Severely damaged in the 1755 earthquake it had fallen into disrepair until the 1940’s when restoration work was done to create the landmark it is now. After a coffee we headed back to the Arch de Rua Augusta as we didn’t realise you could climb it so why not. We spent some time working out where to leave our bags tomorrow, climbed more hills checking out the Bairro Alto area including riding the Gloria Finicular, which was opened in 1885. Most people catch it up the hill then walk down while we did the opposite. Go figure. We eventually got home for a change and a bit of a rest before heading for the football. Benfica v Rio Ave. We got off the metro and followed the crowd into a throng of beer and food vans which was a great warm up for the match. We had great seats on level 1 behind the goals. Fantastic atmosphere with 58941 Benfica fans and 20 Rio Ave fans. Glad we bought the right merchandise. Benfica got up 5-0 so by the last goal we sort of worked out what to sing. After the match we followed the locals who lead us to a game of chicken trying to cross 6 lanes of roads with concrete barriers in between to get to a metro that was closer to our end of the stadium. We were thinking the metro would be packed but again there was a party going on at the metro entrance with huge food vans smashing the food out and the beer was flowing. It would have been an hour before we headed down to get the metro and by then it was an easy ride home. Great last night in Lisbon.Read more