Racing to Lisbon

It's not often these days that I get out of bed first thing for a run, but the appeal of a sunrise run along the beach made it happen!

I tried running barefoot along the beach but...I'm not as fit as I used to be. It was frying my legs! I put my shoes back on and ran along the road and boardwalk...

I loved this relaxing morning sitting at breakfast and listening to the waves crashing upon the shore just steps away.

And all of a sudden, as I chilled out and relaxed at breakfast (brunch, by now), Mindy pointed out that we had to leave right now to catch our tour in Lisbon. As in, the drive was expected to be 2h 40m and the tour started in 3 hours. Eek! We threw our stuff in the car and bolted. (Thankfully the apartment where we are staying is 160m from the 

Plenty of signs advertised exciting ruins and archaeological sights along the way from Faro to Lisbon - I felt taunted by all these compelling stops along the way with no time to visit them! (Stopping for gas was nearly too long...)

We made it! Running up to the square and Sandeman's characteristic red umbrellas with only moments to spare, the English tour guide (who actually is English, too - moved to Lisbon "for no reason at all" and then fell in love with the city and subsequently one of its inhabitants) had just started his introductions. I was distracted for the first few minutes of the tour - trying to connect to WiFi to email the hosts at our apartment as we had planned to get the keys before the tour... Eventually Pascal handed me his phone and invited me to use that to email them, instead.

For me, the tour started at this old church ruin. It was a church, until the day Portugal suffered an earthquake, fire and flood all in one day. (If one ever needed a reason to think god is angry....) The earthquake was the first to damage the church, causing the roof to cave in - crushing some of the parishioners and knocking over candles that were lit for the service. While the candle flame spread to the wooden frame of the church, the "lucky" survivors in the church ran out and down to the river. These Lisbon-ites saw the hand of Moses at work as the riverbed was dry, affording them opportunity to flee across the river. Instead, they fell to their knees in prayer to the holy saint, right as the tsunami of water rushed back in and flooded lower Lisbon. The church up the hill was partially flooded, but not enough to put out all the fire from the toppled candles. The fire spread through the wooden structures and ultimately consumed much of the city.

Avoiding the fare for the elevator ride to the top, we looked out from the platform across the city.

Making our way to the main square of Lisbon - the erstwhile execution grounds back in the middle ages (known as a good place for dates, according to written records of the era - we also learned that the Portuguese liqueur Ginginha was borne out of the Portuguese government's attempt to dispossess the religious class. When the government took their lands and their ability to raise funds, the monasteries looked to what they had at hand to make money. One thing some of them had at hand was sour cherries, and knowledge of fermentation into alcohol. (Later, I went back to this original shop for Ginginha to supply our bar back at home.)

Walking down the main thoroughfare of Lisbon to the old city gates, Pascal explained various Portuguese specialties such as vinho verte (“Green wine”) and tinto vinho verte (“red green wine”) – freely admitting that the latter held little appeal to most Portuguese. He said it was an experience to be had…but I never ended up having it. We arrived at the gates to the city with a large square and the river beyond.

At this conclusion of the tour, Mindy and I rushed back to meet our hosts and get into our apartment, and also to return our rental car. (I highly recommend SurPrice car rental, by the way – easiest process for picking up and dropping off the car with no attempts to upsell us on things we didn’t need.)

Our spacious Chiado Apartment overlooked the main square in Chiado and gave us a great view of the bustling city below. (At night, this had the downside of putting us within hearing range of a terrible busker singing (kind of) on the street below. As our bedroom was toward the back of the apartment and away from the street, this was only a minor disturbance.)

Though we were warned it may be difficult to find vegetarian fare in Lisbon, Mindy found the delectable Jardim de los Sentidos for dinner that night, where I also tried Ginginha for the first time.

When we return to Lisbon – because before this first day was out we already knew we would come back for a more dedicated Lisbon holiday – we will be returning to Jardim on a routine basis.