After carefully availing ourselves of our Lisbon transportation options, Jenn and I decided to bite the bullet and really be tourists for the remainder of the trip. As such, we started the day by purchasing 48-hour tickets on the hop-on, hop-off double decker bus. There were a lot of benefits to this, including its ability to take us to areas that the somewhat limited metro can't, an audio tour (that worked approximately 50% of the time), and getting to see a little bit more of the City in transit.
Today, we took the red line, which had a stop down the block from our bed and breakfast. We got to the stop, and waited. Then we waited some more. And then we waited. Finally, one of the drivers from another double decker tourism bus company (there are three) took pity on us and gave us a ride to Belem, which was our intended destination (all three bus companies use the same routes).
Belem is a fairly concentrated area at the mouth of the Tagus River. Famous sites include the Tower of Belem, which we walked around for a while, and Jeronimo's Monastery. Jeronimo's Monastery has lovely gardens outside, where we hunkered down and dozed in the sun near a large fountain. The weather was pretty close to perfect - high 60s, mostly sun... beautiful. When we completed our cat-like activities, we explored the Monastery, and walked around Belem a bit. As you may have already guessed, the weather was perfect for gelato. So obviously we got some. And it was delicious.
We wandered a little further, and then found the hop-on spot. There was slightly less waiting this time, and we stayed on the bus for about half of the almost-two-hour tour, to get a better sense of Lisbon. We hopped off for half an hour or so at the Marques do Pombal square, so that we could climb to the top and see the view.
Today, we took the red line, which had a stop down the block from our bed and breakfast. We got to the stop, and waited. Then we waited some more. And then we waited. Finally, one of the drivers from another double decker tourism bus company (there are three) took pity on us and gave us a ride to Belem, which was our intended destination (all three bus companies use the same routes).
Belem is a fairly concentrated area at the mouth of the Tagus River. Famous sites include the Tower of Belem, which we walked around for a while, and Jeronimo's Monastery. Jeronimo's Monastery has lovely gardens outside, where we hunkered down and dozed in the sun near a large fountain. The weather was pretty close to perfect - high 60s, mostly sun... beautiful. When we completed our cat-like activities, we explored the Monastery, and walked around Belem a bit. As you may have already guessed, the weather was perfect for gelato. So obviously we got some. And it was delicious.
We wandered a little further, and then found the hop-on spot. There was slightly less waiting this time, and we stayed on the bus for about half of the almost-two-hour tour, to get a better sense of Lisbon. We hopped off for half an hour or so at the Marques do Pombal square, so that we could climb to the top and see the view.
(I haven't uploaded my pictures yet, but this is exactly what it looked like)
By this point, it was getting a little late, so we hopped back on and headed back to the general vicinity of our B&B to find dinner and do a bit of souvenir shopping. Dinner was actually at Burger King. For some reason, I was really feeling a burger, and Burger King now sells bean burgers, which Jenn said was surprisingly tasty. Now if only they had real Diet Coke... (this is my one-week-iversary without it... clearly, it can be done. But why should it?)
More exploring (and shopping) tomorrow. We're both trying not to go back to the ATM unless absolutely necessary (I had $9.14 in fees after withdrawing money on Sao Miguel - totally ridiculous, and we won't need leftover euros in the states), which puts us each at around 20 euros, after you take our money for our 4:15 AM cab ride to the airport on Saturday. We'll see if we make it...
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