A Trip to Portugal (page 10 of 11)
Day Nine – Back to Lisbon
Our flight home was leaving from Lisbon at 7 AM on Sunday, so we had to spend the night in Lisbon on Saturday. Breakfast saw a repeat of the
cafe con leite incident complete with approving nod from Edie and me. We then caught a cab to the other train station in Porto where we could catch an express train to Lisbon.
The other train station was much more modern than the first one we’d been
to. We went to the ticket counter to buy tickets to Lison and made one of the worst mistakes we could’ve made. The guy selling the tickets asked us (in Portugese) whether we wanted first or second class. Edie and I quickly consulted to make sure we’d understood and told him second. He then asked smoking or not (in English), and I SWEAR the way he said it made it sound like a clarification of the first question. We’re not picky travellers, and all of the other trains we’d been on had windows that could be opened from the inside. We reiterated our earlier answer and said we wanted smoking.
Portugal is a smoky country. There’s no such thing as a “non-smoking section”
in Portugese restaurants. Cigarette machines are everywhere, and everyone smokes. It’s a fact of life. I’m a non-smoker and I don’t particularly like second-hand smoke. That said, I was fine with the smoke for most of the trip. But the three hour train ride we took from Porto to Lisbon felt like sitting in a chimney. First of all, the windows didn’t open. Second, the man sitting accross the aisle from us (this train was the only one we took with assigned seats) literally chained all the way to Lisbon. He would let the ash on his cigarette build up until it would finally fall off into his lap. This happened over and over again. It was absolutely disgusting. The most demoralizing part of it all was when I
went up to get a soda from the bar in the middle of the train and I realized that there were non-smoking second class cabins. It wasn’t a clarification, it was a second question. So please, if you’re ever buying a ticket on a train from Porto to Lisbon, GET A SEAT IN THE NON-SMOKING CABIN. You will be happier in the end.
We’d already decided to stay in the same place as our first few nights in Lisbon. In the square a block away we say a big stage being errected and
a sign that said ”Rossio Praca de Paz”. We figured the latter was a reference to the war, but we didn’t know what the stage was for. We dropped off our bags and headed to the turismo to ask, but the woman there didn’t know either. As we were walking down to the turismo we saw hundreds of people walking the other way. Edie thought there might be another soccer match, but on one was wearing a jersey.
When we finally made it back to the square, we realized what was going on.
We walked right into the middle of a peace protest. Having been isolated from media we could understand, we had no idea that protests were happening around the world. When we first got there the crowd was sparse and made up primarily of people waving communist party flags. This made me uncomfortable, but as the afternoon wore on more groups paraded into the square carrying a variety of different banners. I’m pleased to report that the crowd was very peaceful. There was a small police presence, but it stayed at the periphery for the duration of the protest. The stage was there for speeches and music. Edie and I spoke English to each other, and
no one gave us a hard time. The mood was not pro-American, but I never felt unwanted or out of place.
After spending a while at the protest, we went to do see a final tourist attraction before heading home. We went to the Elevador de Santa Justa. Normally after going up the elevator you can walk directly to the Barrio Alto. Unfortunately that part was closed. We went to the top anyway to enjoy a great view of the city during sunset. We decided to cap the trip by going back to the same restaurant we did the second night we were in Lisbon. Edie was expecting to have the arroz de tamboril, but alas!, it wasn’t on the menu, proving that the daily specials really were daily. She had fried sole, and I had fried whiting. The whiting turned out to be two whole fish. They were served with their tails in their mouths. The presentation was bizarre, but the fish was delicious. We finished the meal with a final glass of port and returned to the hotel.
