Day 20 - Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon is a large port at the mouth of the Tagus River, and the capital of Portugal. It was from here that much of the great wave of exploration started in the 15th century.

The first site to greet us was the 25th of April Bridge, which spans the river at the port. It is named for the date in 1974 when a bloodless revolution restored democracy by overthrowing the regime of Antonio Salazar. It was built employing the same engineering principles used to build the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and looks like its twin. We were up on deck as the ship sailed under the bridge.

By this time in our travels, we have done some tours through the ship, some tours we booked online from the port cities we visit and some “just doing our own thing” when we got off the ship in the port. When researching the possibilities for the port of Lisbon, I discovered a local tour company called, “We Hate Tourism Tours” and thought they would have a fun and different approach to showing us the city of Lisbon. I made reservations for us and our Colorado neighbors and we were pleasantly surprised when several others making up the two 8 passenger minivans were people from our cruise critic rollcall. So we had familiar faces in our mini van of 8.

We had so much fun on this tour….we highly recommend this company. Our young local drivers took us on a journey to learn about Portuguese culture from their perspective. Yes, we saw sites that tourists go to but we also had the opportunity to taste local foods and go to places where tourist buses don’t go. It was an adventure just going up and down the narrow streets the locals use on the hills of Lisbon. They made our day fun, inspite of rain showers that followed us around for most of the day.

High in the hills above Lisbon

Sintra, where the rich go to escape from busy Lisbon

Quinta da Regaleira--a palace in Sintra for an aristocratic family

Yum - our morning treat

Our drivers made us a picnic lunch

A sampling of tile, which is all over Lisbon

Guardians Gate at the Quinta da Regaleira--the summer palace for aristocracy

Terry up in one of the towers on the palace property

Another overview of Lisbon

We now head east into the Atlantic Ocean with stops in the Azores and then across to Bermuda before arriving in Fort Lauderdale.