Tapp's Travels

Our ship leaves Lisbon on Friday (tomorrow).  But before then, our last day in the city dawns clear and sunny.

But there’s a major disturbance on the roads outside the breakfast room window.  6,000 taxis have descended on Lisbon from as far away as Faro and Porto.  Fleets of them.  Going slowly up and down the Avenida da Liberdade (the broad boulevard up to Eduard vii Park).  In a contiuous loop.  Trying to jam the roads up solid.  Horns blasting – hazard lights flashing.  Police everywhere.  Apparently, it’s a protest by taxi drivers about the Portuguese government’s slow response to their demands to ban Uber and other similar services!  And just as we’ve discovered how much better these call-up services are compared to traditional taxis.  Sod’s law, I guess!  Maybe the taxi industry has to update THEIR service.

So, we responded by taking an Uber to the Botanic Gardens – well, there were no taxis for hire anywhere!  We had been advised that a serious increase in altitude was involved in what was a relatively short walk to the gardens.  Hence the car ride.

The gardens are an oasis of peace.  Well, they would have been if it weren’t for the adjacent building site and the two workers blowing leaves off the paths.  In fact, it was a lovely garden with lots of native xerophytes and sculptures.

Who said “…

and two extinct species”?

Glenda on the edge of the bamboo jungle.

From these gardens we headed for the Eduard vii Park where “everyone goes to picnic and generally hang out” – except it was all but deserted at lunchtime today!

… as was the roundabout at the top of the Avenida da Liberdade which leads back down to our hotel.

Two days ago this was jammed chocka when we arrived in town.  The Marqués do Pombal  watching from the top of his plinth.  His full and nifty title was actually Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis de Pombal e 1st Count de Oeiras.  Obviously a queijo grande (big cheese) in the early 1700s.

Portugal is famous for it’s wall-hung decorative (often blue on white) tiles.  It also has zillions of stone.”tiles” on the ground.  Heavy duty parquet flooring.

On the 500m walk down from M. Pombal’s roundabout there were three footpaths and three roads.  Say a total of 25 m width.  All tiled.  With an average cobblestone size of 10×10 cms (which is probably conservative) that’s 1.25 zillion individually laid bits of stone.  And there are literally hundreds of kilometres of mosaic paving in the city.  Then there’s the rest of Portugal to consider!  That’ll be quadrillions, like i said!

There’s even a statue just beside our hotel of two guys laying the stones by hand!  One guy naps the stones and the other bashes them into place.

Saturday saw us in our third Uber – transferring to the ship.  The Seven Seas Voyager.  We have discovered that the check-in procedure for cruises is more tedious and repetitive than we feel it ought to be.  In this case, we had pre-registered all our passport and health details electronically with our agent and then again with Regent Seven Seas.   These were then checked manually before security and again as we boarded when we were handed ship’s passes.  Then, of course, our passports were checked again and we were asked all the questions about the state of our health once more and our answers recorded manually.  Then, to cap it all, we had to register our ship’s passes to say we were indeed on board.

Time for some alcohol! And a late buffet lunch.

By then our cabin was ready.

Complete with walk-in dressing room and bathroom with a shower and a bath.

At 6 pm we set off into the setting sun.

Except we were heading East under the “Ponte de 25 Abril” road bridge carefully avoiding all supporting pillars!  So the sun was actually behind us as we left port, not in front.  Details!

The bridge celebrates the Carnation Revolution of 1974 which was a major step in the establishment of a democracy in Portugal.  Exactly 50 years ago in just two weeks time!  I had no real idea of the political upheaval going on so recently in this part of Europe.

Our route over the next ten days or so is shown below.

A lot of worryingly open ocean!  Plenty of time to record more exciting stories!