Making 10 days in Portugal seem like months

Last Updated on December 21, 2023 by PowersToTravel

The first tip to making the trip seem like a lifetime, and a good lifetime, is to walk the city of Lisbon.

Lisbon is well mapped in Google maps, and the entire city is accessible with the little Google man.  I would find an apartment I might rent, go to Google maps, drag the little man to the street, and decide if I like the neighborhood, see if there’s a grocery nearby, if there are bars or cafes underfoot and explore a bit.

I find it helpful, and disappointing at the same time.  I want to experience the wonder of the new country with fresh eyes, and an open imagination.  I don’t want to feel as if I had been there before.

What the Google man does not clearly show, while you rotate that camera around, and up and down, is exactly how very HILLY Lisbon is.   While I was able to experience a little of the architecture, and the beautifully tiled buildings during my couch-surfing, the trip itself was indeed eye-opening, or should I say, “heart-pumping.”

I have since learned that when you use Google Maps, and choose Walking mode, there’s a little arrow pulldown that appears at the end of the left panel.  Click on it and it will show you the feet (or meters!) up or down you will be traveling on that itinerary.  You can even follow the graphic through your itinerary to find out exactly where the hills occur!

I chose an apartment in Chiado, Rua Garrett 26, for its price, features and proximity to sights and restaurants.  What I didn’t understand was how far down, and how far up, we had to walk each day.  One kilometer on the map chewed up an extraordinary amount of calories, and stressed my leg muscles to the maximum.

I found myself, at 3 am on the morning of the third day, soaking in the apartment’s jetted bathtub (whose jets, sadly, did not work).  The beds in Portugal are as hard as the sandstone the city is made of.  I ached so much that I could not imagine making it to dawn, much less two more nights.

But what a fantastic city!  The city had been destroyed by earthquake in 1755, and most had been rebuilt, the downtown an orderly grid of streets lined with ornate white sandstone buildings.   The city is accentuated by plaza after plaza, paved in intricately patterned grey and white sandstone.   The walls of the red-roofed buildings are decorated in primarily blue and yellow tiles,  and many buildings were painted with yellow accents.  The Marques de Pombal, the man engaged by the king to oversee this inspiring work, stands atop a column in one such prominent plaza.  I didn’t remember the name of the king who financed the rebuilding, but certainly remember the name of the man who accomplished it.

In my travels I have seen the remnants of cultures, and felt their loss.  As I sat on the side of a Mayan temple in Tikal,  Guatemala, and gazed over the jungle below, I had felt suddenly as if I were looking at a future New York City, as if from the Planet of the Apes.  I wondered how our civilization would fare over the future years.  At Pachacamac, I gazed sadly up the former Inca highway upon where the brother of Pizarro had ridden in his quest for the gold of Peru;  then I turned to see the decaying remnants of the Inca palaces.

But as I walked the streets of Lisbon, I was happy to see that what had once been ruined had been raised from the rubble into a fantastically beautiful city.

The experience was intense.  By the end of the fourth day, we felt as if we had been in Portugal for a month.  By the end of the ten days, we felt as if we had been there much longer.  Every day was filled with amazing architecture, sounds of a very strange language, the pride of the Portuguese and the ever present pain in my calves.

Related Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon Check out the subsection “Baixa” which talks about the Marquess de Pombal’s “earthquake resistant” technology.

Diabetic Travel Tips

In my Google map walking around the neighborhood of Rua Garrett, I found reference to a good-sized Pingo Doce, a grocery store, about 4 blocks away, as well as a pharmacy in the same block.  (Pingo Doce is at  R. 1º de Dezembro, 67)  That did it!  I chose Rua Garrett.  Unfortunately we later found that the walk was down four blocks, and back up, each evening.  If I had chosen an apartment on Rua dos Sapateiros, we would have been slightly further away from the grocery, but the walk would have been level!

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