It has become an annual routine – a night in Faro, then up to rural Sao Marcos da Serra to spend a few nights with daughter Clara, her husband Steve and grand-daughter Eve, then, this year, train up to Lisbon, spend a few nights there. Horrendous journey back though. Battleaxe is totally traumatised at the moment because only got this new PC yesterday… more about that later, but I’m afraid text will be full of alarms and excursions. Lovely sun in Hastings at the moment – better weather than we had in Portugal…
To start us off…. aaaargh what? This new PC has Windows 11 – it has succeeded in totally messing up all my photos… oh hells bells… To start us off, a random picture of a paved square in Lisbon. Like most Portugese spaces, it is attractively paved in patterned black and white. This one made us feel a bit seasick though… It’s the only pic I can get this thing to load up to WordPress at the moment, with the help of John, our computer man. As soon as he leaves the house, I’ll have forgotten what he said….Grrrrr…. Philosopher says to calm down. Every time I get a new device I go through this… Ah ha managed another photo – changeable weather in Sao Marcos…
So, back to Portugal. There we were, as usual, spending our first night in the Hotel Faro – what an excellent breakfast they have, in a lovely roof-top restauramt. But next day, for the first time in our experience, it was raining. So we had an ecclesiastical morning. First, we walked to a church that was said to have a Chapel of Bones in it. Indeed it did, but not as impressive as some of the grisly places we have visited, eg in Rome.
However, the church was an amazing gilded edifice.
Then we walked across town to the Cathedral, which we had never actually visited. Won’t bother with any photos – this process is far too stressful. Would you believe this damn thing will only save photos from my iphone in some obscure HEIC format which of course WordPress does not accept…
Then to Sao Marcos – by this time the weather had cleared up. We were there three nights – one and a half lovely sunny days, the rest dull and rainy. They cooked for us on the first night, then I cooked for all of them on the second night, and we went out on the third night – again, turning into an annual ritual. It is tricky cooking for five when you don’t know the kitchen and don’t have the tools. There was no whisk in the kitchen – poor Philosopher had to spend ages beating a load of eggs with a pasta serving tool…
The family were all in good form – here is a not great photo, but at least it is here…
As ever, the house we were staying in was very cold at night. The kitchen and bathroom had no heating at all… not many showers for Battleaxe! It is sad for the house, it is very little lived in over the year, making it even colder. But it’s a lovely place… look… even a swimming pool.
Before we leave Sao Marcos, here is the family’s house – in the middle of the pic. We really enjoy our visits to the family – the village is so wonderfully peaceful.
Train to Lisbon on a cold wet day. We had booked the same hotel we stayed in when we last visited in 2014. . A comfortable, cosy old place – the Lisboa Plaza. Here’s the old blog post about our 2014 trip. I made a composite pic of us resting on our bed – in 2025 and back in 2014…
The hotel is a bit out of the main tourist drag – just as well, compared with 2014, Lisbon was absolutely heaving. Streets that had been empty were full of eateries, noisy buskers and random stuff sellers, there were massive queues for the lifts and funiculars… urgh. We decided to try and stay out of the crush and went to the Llisbon Botanical Gardens. A bit wintry of course but still very attractive and above all, peaceful. They have a famous collection of palm trees, and we saw a big lizard…
Oh crikey, I tried to edit the lizard photo and it tried to make me use some new AI editing thing…. noooo go away…. After, we strolled through the Principe Real district, which had really come up in the world since our last visit, and stopped at an amazing old cafe for lunch. I can’t find it on the map – oh yes, the Panificacao Reunida de Sao Roque…It had some wonderful tiles in it – here is an example. Ornamental tiles (azulejo) are massive in Portugal. Many buildings in Lisbon are covered in them. Here is a green-tiled building, for example.
I wanted to revisit a square in the Chiado district, where there is a statue of poet Fernando Pessoa outside his favourite cafe. Found it without getting trampled by tourist hordes.
The next day, we went even further away from the masses and revisited the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. In 2014 we were much impressed by the architecture and the gardens, but all the grey Brutalist concrete has got very stained and worn, and the ardens were looking a bit tatty. There is a new modern art gallery though, architecture impressive but contents impenetrable.
One of my favourite things in the original collection museum is this beautiful, and perfect, alabaster cup… Egyptian Old Kingdom, around 2,600 BC. One doesn’t like to ask where/how Calouste bought most of his things, but all are very fine…
He also collected Lalique – exquisite. This pic is off the internet.
Our last day was somewhat ruined by Easyjet telling us that our flight, due to leave at 4.30pm, was delayed for seven hours – the plane had broken down and they had to send another from Tenerife via Gatwick. To make matters worse, I was developing some sort of very dodgy stomach bug. Had terrible visions of Norovirus-type eruptions on the plane, so went to airport phamacy and explained my predicament as best I could. They gave me a drug called Debridat, which contains trimebutane, which is not licensed in the UK or the US. However, for me it worked a treat – no running to the loo, no nausea… and it helped the hours pass just fine. Anyway, we didn’t arrive home until almost 4am. Exhausted. But here’s the good news – we will get £700 compensation from Easyjet! Philosopher said it would be worth spending a few more hours at the airport…
So, two more pics of Lisbon – Philosopher with another statue, and a classic Lisbon tram.
I think I’ve banged on plenty enough about the PC situation. I don’t suppose I am alone in this – John the computer man was saying that both Microsoft and Apple seem determined to constantly change things and make them less user-friendly, not the other way round. Ah well, we’ll cope.
