Rossio Square

We rented a car to make the roughly 200 km ride to our home for the next 7 days, Lisbon. I got a nasty surprise when I dropped the little Fiat off to the Europcar concession in Lisbon as the one-way charge cost more than the actual rental charge. I had booked the car through a third party provider, AutoEurope, for what I thought was an all inclusive price that had the drop off fee built in. I apparently didn't read the fine print. Oh well, I won't make that mistake again.

In any event, we took the slow scenic route down the coast and were treated to incredible vistas as we drove south. We stopped for lunch at about the half way point in the resort town of Nazare, and to check out their highly reputed scenery. We were not disappointed. When we drove into town, the Google Maps app brought us straight to the scenic lookout that towers over the town 360 meters below. Unlike Figueiro, the beach here had plenty of people strolling along the sand and even a few brave souls paddleboarding in the frigid water.

After taking in the views from above, we drove down to sea level and were equally as impressed by the beauty of the cliff we had just been standing upon. We followed some locals into a cafeteria style restaurant and had (what else ?) a delicious bowl of vegetable soup and some rice and beans for lunch.

The rest of the journey was less spectacular as we used the highway to bring us in to Lisbon. Once we arrived, after a week in sleepy Figueira, I was unprepared for the narrow one way streets crowded with pedestrians and autos alike. Fortunately, the Portuguese are, for the most part, very courteous drivers, so my hesitant, and sometimes bad driving was tolerated.

We arrived at our apartment a little after 3:00 and were greeted by the owner, Tomas, who is a most gracious and helpful host.

After we settled in, I wanted to drop Brenda's bike off to a local Dahon dealer to repair the damage caused by the accident and then return the rental car. Of course, by this time we were approaching rush hour and traffic was a nightmare. Add in the hilly, winding, narrow one-way streets, traffic cops forbidding me to turn left at certain intersections and, after 45 minutes of utter frustration, I cried Uncle, gave up on the bike shop and headed straight to the rental agency to get rid of the car.

We walked back to the bike shop to have the repairs done and from there wandered the streets of Lisbon to scope out the territory.

It's a beautiful city and we're looking forward to exploring it thoroughly. I must say that I didn't think anywhere could be hillier than Porto, but I couldn't have been more wrong. With all this climbing I have a feeling that we'll be leaving Portugal with buns of steel.Read more