Lisbon

Before we get to Lisbon, you're gonna have to go on the same ride that I did to get here. That ride starts with the morning bus into Burgos from the hostel that never came. Turns out it doesn't run that far out on Sunday. The really rotten part about that is that I specifically asked about the bus when I checked in and was told I could catch it right out front until 11:oo! Ah, I'llchalk that one up to language difficulties. I pulled up my hood an started to walk. I had taken about 15 steps, when a car slowed down and the driver hollered "halooo". Now, I don't normally take ridess from strangers and had it been nighttime, I'd've kept on walking. Carlos spoke almost as much English as I speak Spanish. He had seen me waiting for the bus and then start my walk. He explained that he has done the pelligrino (pilgrammage, I think) from Santiago de Compestello to Burgos so I guess that means he knows what the walking in the rain is like. He dropped me off just a few blocks from the cathedral. See what I mean about the Spanish folks! And having had transport I found myself with time for a sit down breakfast. I picked a place right next to the cathedral. It was a pretty good choice because it was kinda like a Denny's. That is to say the menu had pictures. I pointed to a close approximation to sausage and eggs but chose the chorizo to at least keep it a little native. It went down very well. One American style breakfast, a relaxing cuppa and then I was ready for the tourist chu-chu tour of the town. This ride looks like a train but runs on tires and motors to the city highlights much like the big city tour busses except this is not a hop on, hop off deal. You go thru the whole town in about 45 minutes. After the ride I basicallly walked the same path, or at leasst the parts of it I wanted to explore more of including the castle ruins. The castle bit themselves date back to the Romans around 700ad oor something but there is some evidence of human habitation dating back to several hundred years BCE. This place be old!



After following my highlighted version of the highlights, I visited the outside of the museums that are closed on Sunday. And that was prettymuch my day unless you want to count the many, many hours I then spent in the train station. When at last it arrived I was eager to board and get in a bit of sleep. I had only booked a second class seat which meant I did not get a berth but I thought it would be a regular seat but it was a cabin type deal that I was sharing with a very, very chatty Brazilian. He said he didn't speak much English but I guess he wanted to try out all that he did know. After about two hours, another passenger joined us and she spoke Portuguese so that got into a very animated conversaation and Idozed off. I did manage to be awake when it came time for me to change trains. The change was quick, easy and uneventful. The next two hours to my next destination went through some really nice scenery. My favorite topography is a wide flat valley with the mountains/hills easily visible. If you've been to the Mission Valley in Montana or New Meadows in Idaho you knnow what I'm talking about. That's the kind of area we traveled through. The bottom land was more farmed than ranched as far as Icould tell and the major crop looked liked it might have been olives?



At the end of that train ride I wound up in Castelo Branco. I don't want to say this is not a recommended tourist destination but right now it seems to be more of wannabe. And they're making a run at it, too. Of course this is way off season, so they don't have their best face on right now but rather now is when all of the work is happening to present the things that the tourrists will want to see. For, instance, they have their own castle ruins at the top of the hill overlooking the town but they are in the process of excavating those ruins plus several other sites around the town. While these places are not publicized as places to visit, the public is nott prohibited from these areas either. I witness several folks walk under heavy equipment operating in thesse areas. I have a bit too much OSHA in me to try that but still managed to see some of the digs going on.


Castelo Branco was just another overnighter and considering the previous evening I was glad for an early end to the days activitiess. I had a late luncch of the third item on the menu (turned out to be a pork dish with fries and a banana for dessert) and went back to the hostel.


One really long sleep later and I was chowing down on the full on continental breakffast. A short walk after b'fast and I was at the train station for my trip out of the interior to the coast.

I arrived in Lisbon at one of the newest train stations. It exits out (almost) into the Park of Nations, a great long public park along the river. The area is filled with museums, restaurants, gardens, sculptures and other attractions, all built or installed for the 1998 World EXPO. I say the train station almost exits into this park because it actually goes through a three tiered shopping mall complete with a food court, multiplex and a couple of anchor type stores. There was even a Bata shoe store there!

I found a tourist info place to get directions to the hostel. Some hostels, having been hostels since way back, are sometimes located on some prime real estate. Such was not the case for my Lisbon hostel. In fact, my Lisbon hostel was not even a Lisbon hostel. Reading the descriptions of the different hostels in the city on the webbsite I chose the one not located in the city center thinking it would be a little quieter. It was also only about 1/3 the price. Sometimes the price difference is a great savings other times (like this time) not so much. Not only was out of the city center, I was out of the city! While I save quite a bit on the room rate I sort of lost out on some of that saving because of the time and cost to get to the city to do the stuff. The first day of getting to the hostel really sucked mostly because of how high my expectations had gone when I first stepped out into that hugh, bright, clean train station/mall/park only to find that my hostel was on the other side of the river , which by the way took a train (subway, bus and boat to get to! To be fair, the train and boat terminals were big and bright, too.

My first day, yes, I visited the mall. My destination was the park so since I was going through the mall anyway, I did a few laps. There was a Nike store, a Bata shoe store (that's kind of a Maryland thing), Icoste. I think those were the only store names I recognized except for McDs, BK and Pizza Hut. I made it through unscathed. That is to say, I made no purchasess even with everything in full Christmas mode!

I spent most of the rest of the day in the Oceanarium. It's a great big aquarium-Bigger I think that the National Aquarium in Baltimore but laid out in kind of the same idea with one big central tank representing the Atlantic Ocean and then other separate exhibits and tanks representing microcosms of other ocean or other wise fishy parts of the world-coral reefs, wetlands, tropical rainforests and the like. They don't have the seal, sea lions or dolphins but the otters were fun to watch. The current temporary exhibit "Here be Monsters" wasn't very impressive.

From there, I made a short stop into what I thought was the science center and I guess it was. It was three or four floors filled with all kinds of hands-on experiments. One area was devoted to the various visual puzzles, another looked at sound waves and so on. It was mostly geared to introductory or elementary level kind of stuff-kid's games with science and wouldn't you know it, the place was full of kids. Thus the 'short stop'. I didn't think I had spent that much time ateither place but it was after dark by the time I started my journey back to the hostel. On the subway, I began to wonder how long the boats run. Luck for me, they run after dark!

I'm gonna stop here and make sure this gets published and continue Lisbon next time.