Europe June 2011 -- Lisbon: Famous Trolley Ride

A must-do for any Lisbon tourist is to take the #28 Trolley through the Alfama. You can get off and on like any public transportation. We didn't. We had a pass, rode it to the end of the line, and then back again.

As most touristy things, it's infamous for pickpockets, but at the time we went, there were few passengers and we saw no suspicious activity. These pictures show what we did see.

Here we are passing another trolley going the other way in front of the Church of San Vicente de Fora.

These trolleys are old, but well-maintained and the woodwork is lovely.

There are several ways to explore the Alfama. Many people walk, but even the youngest and most fit find it a challenge. You can rent Gocars to drive through like in many cities, but we opted for the trolley.

As you can see from these pictures, the streets are narrow.

Occasionally there will be a "main" one.

The trolley goes down the middle or to the side enough that a person or a car might be able to fit on either side of it.

Something about this place on the corner said photo op, especially with the other trolley going by.

There's a miradouro (viewpoint) to the left of this shot. There are many miradouros in the city and all are very popular. We felt like our apartment was one.

This example hints at why the miradouros are tourist destinations.

I love seeing the same plants we have in the US show up in other parts of the world. This was a particularly pretty bougainvillea.

And this tile wall on the side of a building was a hint of better things to come.

Yeah, they park wherever they can here, too.

Can you count the steps on these stairs? I think this was the back of the building and these were fire escapes, but maybe not.

We swung around a corner and I managed to get a shot of this tile work. These are actually cobblestone cubes about 2"-3" on a side. They are used everywhere to make patterns, addresses, etc.

Here we keep going around a major plaza. We returned to it later, but I'll save that for another post.

This is a typical building exterior. Trout said the primary finishes were tile and graffiti.

This was a building exterior we passed. I'm not sure if the pipe is a gas line or water.

I took this picture straight down from my trolley window. We had about 12"-18" of clearance from the car.

Here we are coming back around by the San Jose Cathedral.

I can only imagine how beautiful this tile work was at some time. At least they are trying to preserve some of it.

It's not night. This is a heavily tree-lined street.

Every city has to have it's pseudo-Greek public building.

Trout liked the grillwork.

And he enjoyed the trolley ride, too. He only had to stand for a brief time on the way back and then he got to sit and see more of the sites.

Europe June 2011 -- Lisbon Neighborhood

We arrived in Lisbon on the morning of June 1st. After clearing customs and getting some Euros, we took a taxi to our home for the next week. We were cranky, tired and hungry -- of course. The taxi dropped us off right in front of the building, but then there were the 4 floors to go up to get to our place at the top.

You may have seen the pictures of our place, Alfama River I, but I linked it just in case you didn't. The website has great pictures and a video clip of the apartment. After a lot of grumbling, Trout managed to get our backpacks up the narrow and steep stairs. He didn't leave until it was time to go to dinner.

I immediately grabbed my mesh bags and headed for the small grocery store in the train station a couple of blocks and about 100 vertical feet down from our apartment. It was a struggle getting the full bags back up the hill and the stairs, but I managed to do it while Trout settled in a bit.

We rested and I admit, we napped instead of staying awake, but we did get up and go down to the water for dinner. We ate at a recommended Italian place on a terrace right on the Tagus River. That was the best pizza I had on the trip.

The trip over was okay, although the flight from Philadelphia to Lisbon was only 6 hours, it was a bit scary. We kept experiencing loud booms like we were hitting air pockets or something. Trout slept through it better than I did, but I finally got to sleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up, the sky was clear, the sun was out and we were approaching land. That was a big relief.

We flew US Airways because it had the best price and the shortest flight time. I don't know if I'd fly them again.

We had good TV reception and English channels in the living room of the apartment. We didn't stay up long that night, though. The weather was nice, we didn't need to use the AC the whole time we were there. There was a bar downstairs and next door to our building, but it wasn't too terribly noisy for us -- especially that 1st night.

As usual, I woke up early, shut the door to the bedroom and went to the kitchen to make coffee. While the water was heating, I started taking pictures. You should be able to click on any of these to make them bigger.

This is someone cleaning the street about 1/2 block from our building. The truck is delivering veggies to the restaurants and small groceries on the street.

A neighbor had her birds in the window. They were there during the day on most days.

We were in a typical and busy residential area of the Alfama, the oldest district of Lisbon. It's supposed to be a very poor neighborhood, but I think parts of it are getting gentrified.

Our apartment had windows on 3 sides. This is the river side.

This is the 3rd side, with a partial view of the river. The blue building is the train station.

This, along with the cleaning pictures, are facing the major part of the city. This is what we saw from one side of the living room and from our bedroom.

This building just below us is the Military Museum. We did see many soldiers in uniform in the area.

Here's Trout on one of the nearby "streets." Most are for walking only.

Many of the buildings are surfaced in tile on the outside. This is a pattern just down the hill from us.

This place is on the square below us. Between 2 bar-restaurants, it's being remodeled. There will probably be living spaces above and a business on the ground floor.

This is the front of the Military Museum.

Can you tell what this sign is for? Easy, isn't it? You can read Portuguese!

Trout went with me on this trip to the grocery store. Here he is heading up the hill. Note the laundry hanging outside the windows. You'll see ours later in another post.

So we walked up that hill bit and turned left for the long part. Trout's carrying one of those mesh bags full. Our apartment is at the top of the beige building in the middle of the picture. Note the sort of steps on the sides of the street. Younger people went down the street quickly, flop flopping their way down the middle usually in flip-flops. We didn't see many stilletos in this town.

I'm panting here, trying to catch my breath and taking a picture looking back down the long, steep hill.

This is what's in the street where you saw the cleaning before. It's a bollard to prevent just anyone from driving down it. A special code is required to make the thing go down so it can be driven over.

These folks had the code.

I watched out our windows several times hoping this would happen, and I finally managed to catch this vehicle making the 1st turn, then the turn just below us and then going into the restricted street.

Now here's the same location at night.

And down the street toward where the birds were.

The train station at night.

A boat on the river.

As it turned out, the cruise ships docked just below us. As most people know, cruising is just not my thing. Here's why.

The ships docked in the morning pretty early. The busses lined up around 10:00 am to take people somewhere. Based on our time in Lisbon, the places you could go on these monsters were not the most interesting parts of the city. The busses were back late afternoon and the ships seemed to leave no later than 6:00 pm. At best, people got to spend 8 hours exploring and that includes eating. We spent a week and still didn't see all we could have seen.

This ship was a more interesting one to me.

This is a whole cruise ship.

This one was a fancy one. I snapped this because we have a friend here whose name is Aida.

That's an introduction to where we made our home base in Lisbon. We walked, took the subway or took a bus or commuter train to most of the places we went. Taxi fare was very cheap in Lisbon and we used taxis only 5 times when it was more convenient or safer to do that. There was a time that I would never have considered spending the money to take a taxi. Not any more.