PORTUGAL 2025
Lisbon Again
Our final stop on this Portuguese adventure is a 1/2 day return to Lisbon before we fly home.
March 19
After we boarrd our Easyjet flight, we are told to close our eyes and hold our breath as they are spraying some weird spray down the length of the passenger cabin. That's not unsettling at all... happy to have a mask while we are on the plane.
I picked a hotel super close to the airport as we had a very early flight the next day.
We checked in at the Star Inn and booked a Bolt ride share to the National Tile museum.
The Museu Nacional do Azulejo (National Tile Museum), is one of the most important of the national museums by the singularity of its collection, Azulejo (tile) differentiates Portuguese culture, and by the uniqueness of the building in which the Museum is set, the former Madre de Deus Convent, founded in 1509. Its collections takes you through the history of tile, from 15th century to present day.
From the old convent remains a small Manueline (a Portuguese Gothic and Renaissance style) cloister and a stunning church. The church’s tile panels are among the main highlights of the collection, and the gilded woodwork is one of the finest of several exceptional examples of the kind in the city. The paintings above the tile panels are from the 16th and 18th centuries.
An entire room is devoted to a huge 23m (75ft) long panel illustrating Lisbon before the 1755 earthquake. Dating from 1700 and attributed to one of the first masters of baroque tile art, it’s something of a panoramic photograph, showing 14 kilometers (9 miles) of the Lisbon skyline at the time. On the 1300 tiles you can see monuments that no longer exist, and others that you may still visit.
From some silly tiles like the bathroom signs and the chicken's wedding, we caught a Bolt and got dropped off at Castelo de São Jorge.
Human occupation of the Castelo de São Jorge dates to at least the 8th century BC while the oldest fortifications on the site date from the 2nd century BC. The hill on which Saint George's Castle stands has played an important part in the history of Lisbon, having served as the location of fortifications occupied successively by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, and Moors, before its conquest by the Portuguese in the 1147 Siege of Lisbon. Since the 12th century, the castle has variously served as a royal palace, a military barracks, home of the Torre do Tombo National Archive, and now as a national monument and museum.
From up here you can see over the entire city.
The castle walls and towers were constructed during the Moorish occupation of Lisbon.
We had a nice lunch inside the castle
Torre da Igreja do Castelo de São Jorge, which was closed for more than thirty years, hid many secrets, such as the statue of Saint George, which has been carried on a white horse in the capital's oldest procession since 1570. In addition to visiting the church, it is now possible to climb the fifty steps to the Bell Tower.
We spent the last few hours of our day wandering shop to shop in the rain, looking for some Ginja liquer to take home with us.
With a few extra bags of goodies, we called a Bolt, and returned to our hotel.
It would be a very early night as we have a very early flight in the morning.
March 20
At 2:40am our shuttle picks us up in torrential rain, and drops us off at an entrance in an underground. We had hoped to get some more Ginja in the duty free, but at 4am the Duty Free is closed, kind of seems right based on all the closures we encountered during the trip. When we board the flight we have to board a bus and walk up the stairs in the rain. At 5 am we fly to Frankfurt for a short connection wait. In Frankfurt the gate agent is announcing deals on upgrades and we upgrade to Premium economy for the 10 hour flight home. At 1:00pm we land in Vancouver, then it's an Uber for our final leg home in a swasticar.
When we get home and unpack, we are still finding bits of confetti from our Carnaval experience.
As soon as we land, we hear the news of a massive storm that hit Lisbon the morning we were leaving, apparently it was a good thing we stayed beside the airport. As I'm finishing up this part of the blog, there is news of massive power outages across Portugal and Spain, Imagine how many more things would have been closed. I hope that all the amazing people we met in Portugal are safe and doing well during these emergencies.
Portugal was a wonderful country, full of history and great food, even if they could use a few more vegetables. The weather wasn't the greatest, but we still managed to see so much, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a trip to this wonderful country.
