Santo António Church

We left the “Nest” just after 9 this morning and headed for the metro. Our first order of business was to purchase a 24 hour ticket, and then head to the Central Station to reserve seats on our train trips to Coimbra and Porto. This was pretty easy to do, which pleased Ian. We then wandered around the area and came to Plaça dos Restauradores, which is quite lovely - took some snaps and then headed off in search of the elusive No 28 tram, with the aim of catching it up into the Alfama district . The directions on Ian’s phone took us on a bit of a wild goose chase, and had us doubling back and changing direction several times. We finally found the tram stop (no thanks to Ian’s phone) and also found a huge line of people waiting - my estimate was that we would be waiting there for a good hour or more.

We were approached by a tuk tuk driver named Martin, who offered to drive us up the hill, taking the same route as the tram in his electric tuk tuk for 15 Euros, so we jumped at the offer and were soon in the back of his tuk tuk (that has seat belts). It was a bumpy and fast ride, with Martin pointing out the major sites and places of interest. He also proudly told us that Portugal now had more visitors than Spain, France and Italy. Once we were dropped off, we only had about a 100 metre walk to Castelo de São Jorge (St George) entrance.

As we made our way to the ticket office, we found ourselves at the back of a rather long queue, but this was moving very well, and was well organised, with someone directing people to the next available ticket window. Finally we were in, only to find clouds and fog across the skyline, not making for good views or good pictures. It reminded us of the view you often get of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

We explored the castle grounds, climbed up some of the towers, and were able to get some great views of Lisbon - the fog started to lift as the day rapidly warmed up. On one side of the castle, houses and their gardens came right up to the castle wall, which meant if you lived there you would have strangers peering onto your terrace or back yard. It didn’t seem to worry the residents, as I saw a few having coffee, reading the paper or smoking.

By the time we had finished exploring the grounds and returned to where we started the view had changed, the fog and clouds had mostly disappeared, so we were able to get a clear view of the bridge and beyond. We then left the castle, slowly meandering down the narrow streets around the castle.Read more