Greetings….I arrived a 8 AM this morning…and it is now 8 PM…we are 8 hours ahead of you…in that as I write this it is 8 Friday night…and I am about at the end of the rope and day for me. P.S. Flight was fine except that the SF to NYC flight was late….and I ran full speed over two concourses to get the plane, which, we later found out, was holding for the 6 on our flight…but got some early exercise).
Cleared the Lisbon airport, which is an older airport and not terribly busy..and caught the bus downtown, or as they say, the City Center. Not much traffic, etc and I got off at a stop nearest to my hotel, which was described as behind the Hard Rock café. It is, but a block behind on a small street, and almost all of the streets in the older part of Lisbon at stone tile streets, as in ancient Europe. As I walked from the bus, my first impression…”this is like the old Europe that I remember from 1961 on the Experiment”. After a full day…my impression is that this is a combination of Prague, old Berlin, old Paris, some London, a lot of Budapest…a Paris “air”, and completely laid back Spain.
I got to the Pension, which is in the center of the Old Town….a block off of Libertade Blvd, which is the main divided street with trees streein the middle from the Airport to the River…it is wide with restaurants along each side, much like Paris used to be, as well as Berlin. Gorgeous. No name on the Pension bldg….but I checked in the very small lobby and they said the room would not be ready until noon…so I went down to a small “shop” for a croissant and coffee…then walked a bit..then to the room at 12 and took a 1 hour nap.
Got up and got out of the hotel by 2 and caught the hop on hop off bus…and had 3 hours plus of seeing both the old Lisbon and the new Lisbon where the Convention will be. The new is modern and the old is so “old Europe”…this is a must for someone that wants to see “the way it was”. It seems as if all is build on top of everything else…very hilly and very, very narrow streets with seemingly no order to driving…but yet seems very safe.
I had not eaten, other than the power bars…so asked about Pizza and the desk clerk, who speaks good English…told me of his favorite place, which is just near Rossio Square….which is the “Times Square of Lisbon”. I got a delicious Portuguese pizza…in this very good Italian restaurant….so I guess I am off the lo-carb diet….but it was really good. It was in an open air restaurant along the square…so it was fun watching the crowds as the moved about. A little on the nippy side so they set up heaters, which seem to be pretty common along the maybe 20 restuarants along this two block area.
So, a fun first day…very impressive and very interesting…put this on your “to go to” list….early tomorrow out to the Convention and get signed up and in, etc…so more tomorrow….I am off to bed.
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