5/27: day 1 (pre-trip)

This post covers our first full day, and day 1 of the pre-trip although it is really a continuation of the day 0 post. We like to schedule these pre-trips because it gives us a chance to be tourists for a while, VBT does all the housing arrangements, and we can get our bio-clocks recalibrated.

Flying east is brutal. While the flight wasn't that long, it was too early to be tired enough to sleep and by the time it felt like bedtime, we had arrived. Ugh.

Stu and I cleared customs and retrieved our bags without incident and, as usual, there was a VBT representative waiting for us in the airport lobby. These are usually local guys who are hired just to do the transportation to the hotel. Today, the guy who met us at the airport didn't even drive us anyplace - he just showed us to the van and a different guy drove us to the hotel.

The hotel is located downtown in what is probably a pretty popular tourist place. From the drive, it appeared to be a little like the "old town" of Barcelona with pedestrian walkways similar to Dubrovnik. It has a very European feeling to it.

This is the entrance to our hotel.

Out the front door of is a plaza and just beyond is the harbor. This would have been a good picture of the harbor if Stu hadn't gotten in the way.

To Stu's left is a bridge famous for following the architectural style of the Golden Gate bridge.

Just beyond the seawall, there was a rock garden where people had arranged painted rocks.

This one was my favorite.

When we got back from a brief walk, my room was ready. I went upstairs and took nap #1. Walter and Mike arrived about an hour later (I am rooming with Walter again) so we spent some time catching up on travel stories. 

Walter and I caught Mike leaving the building and we walked around downtown. When Stu and I were walking, it was around 7am and the place was deserted. Now it was around 11 and the place was crawling with tourists, both local and international. 

Another nice picture ruined by tourists.

Here are some pictures of city streets that make you know you're in Europe.

This is one of the side streets that now I'd say it just seems typically European.

Here is a picture of a structure that is a Lisbon landmark (and tourist trip). It is an elevator that was designed by the same guy who designed the Eiffel tower. As Walter says: "Portugal got the short end of that deal."

Here is a plaza with some of the very typical mosaic tile patterns. It's enough to give you vertigo. Note the two guys in the foreground.

Lisbon strikes me as a very old city. I think I remember reading that it actually not that old because most of it was destroyed in a massive earthquake in the 1755 and it was quickly and efficiently rebuilt.

You can't see it from this picture, but the tiles were pretty dirty. At the time, I said that it looks like it doesn't rain here often. Or it could just be that it's just old and dirty. There is an interesting discussion in a forum on Rick Steve's webpage on whether or not this a fair characterization (https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/portugal/lisbon-is-dirty-revisited).

This next picture is not typical but it represents my impression of Lisbon.

Between the graffiti, the trash, and the dirty tiles, it was much less appealing than, say, Dubrovnik, whose residents all seem to understand the importance of appearances for tourists.

We found the obligatory bike shop and poked around.

We didn't find anything to buy we we did like this: 

We went back to our rooms for more naps.

Here's Walter (taken without permission).

The afternoon, we took an e-fatbike tour that Mike had set up.  Here's the company that ran the tour.

Here we are getting ready to ride.

And here are a few action shots.

Here's my bike:

We had a good time and there were a couple of things that made this tour exactly right. First, Lisbon is pretty billy so having e-bikes made the riding the hills much more enjoyable, especially on a day when we were all short on sleep. And since they were fatties, having electronic assist was definitely necessary. Second, having fat tires was essential on Lisbon streets. Most of the streets we rode were cobbled and some also had trolley tracks so having tires that were 4" or wider helped to prevent falls.

Finally, we had a guide, Adrian, who was terrific. Here he is: green t-shirt, no helmet).

The combination of stop-and-go, especially hills, and especially in traffic resulted in Stu slipping off his pedal and scraping up his leg. This is the second year in a row Stu has had an incident on our trips.

We walked around looking for a place for dinner and stumbled on this place in an alley near our hotel that said they specialize in Portuguese food. (Most restaurants in the tourist area figure this is a good selling point.) When we asked further, they said that everything on the menu is based on canned fish. Apparently, canned sardines is what Portugal is known for. Walter took a picture of their inventory.

After a lot of walking around, we ended up having dinner on the plaza across the street from our hotel. It is called the Beer Museum. As Walter said: "This is what happens when Mike picks the restaurant". Mike was happy.

After dinner, we went to to our rooms, cleaned up, and went to bed. Although the clock said 8:00pm, it still felt like 2:30am, even with multiple naps.