Monday, January 08, 2007
Saturday 30th December – Lisbon, Portugal
We set off to Lisbon, prepared for another tiring and stressful day touring a big city. We crossed over the 25th of April bridge which is one of the largest suspension bridges in the world. Whilst driving over it, it reminded us of the golden gate bridge in San Francisco. We drove through the city to the “Praca do Comercio” where to our surprise we were allowed to park for free for the whole day. As with all capital cities Lisbon had many fantastic monuments and statues. The Christmas decorations were on a grand scale and were truly impressive. The Christmas tree was absolutely massive and was at least 100 metres tall. In another square one of the large monuments had Christmas lights in the shape of a bell draped over it. Down one of the pedestrian strips there were large angels twice as big as any man. I’m sure if we had stayed around to see them lit up they would have been truly impressive.
After crossing the street the boys automatically struck up the complaints of tired legs and “when can we go back to the car?” Unperturbed by their ailments we pressed on up the largest hill to the castle at the top. We had a good wander around all the walls, climbing up and down some obscenely steep and precarious steps and along the battlements. But fun was had by all as well as some playacting. On the way back down the hill, the complaints mysteriously restarted, we stopped off for some hot chocolate, then made our way home.
We were pleasantly surprised by how unlike a capital city Lisbon was, the traffic was light the air seemed clean and there was a freshness about the city that was really enjoyable.
