Dia de Portugal - Portugal Day

I'm ashamed to say I had no idea that the June 10th was Portugal Day or to give it its full name "Dia de Portugal, de Camões e das Comunidades Portuguesas".

 

But here we are on this day with the whole country having a Public Holiday to celebrate the life of  Luís de Camões, the national Poet of Portugal who died on this date in 1580. 

The day is a personally important one for me too, as it is six years ago today that my father died, so a day which is rich in memory for me, just as Camões provides rich memories of Portugal and its culture.

Early Morning

After a quieter day yesterday, travelling in the comfort of two coaches, I woke this morning at the time I'd grown used to earlier in the holiday 3.30am.

I got up, replied to some comments on the blog from previous days and began the blog post which outlines how yesterday panned out.

Next I caught up with my home accounts. Today is payday, or at least pension day, for me. So, time to check the money has arrived and to pay the four credit card bills, two of mine, two of Drew's that are due in the next week or so. 

Finance all sorted I then began the process of uploading the 445 photos from Monday onto Flickr.

I took a break from that at 6am to begin my ablutions and Drew did the same at 6.30am. So we were both ready to go down to breakfast at 7am.

Breakfast

At times I sense people's astonishment about our eagerness for breakfast, but just to be clear there was an actual queue outside the breakfast room today. 

Breakfast here at the Holiday Inn Lisbon is an excellent buffet with influences from China as well as the more traditional European fare. 

Drew began with a cross-contenental mix of Bacon, mushrooms, hash browns and rice.

Whereas I stayed with the more conventional yogurt with nuts, seeds and fruit

Drew then had a slice of wholemeal toast

While I had a salad and selection of cheeses. The salad was fresh, crisp and crunchy and the cheese included Brie, a hard cheese from Southern Portugal and a 'country cheese' which is light and fluffy.

I then had some of the cooked food, including sausages, hash browns, mushrooms, scrambled eggs and spring rolls - an intriguing combination, but each of the items were well cooked and delectable.

Drew went on to the delicious selection of cakes - a coffee swiss roll, a large sugary custard doughnut, a palm biscuit and, in honour of Portugal Day, a pastel de nata.

We left breakfast at 7.35am, feeling replete.

Wednesday is Washing Day

I know the tradition is that it is Monday, but on a travelling holiday like this you have to build time for clothes washing in, or have a case to heavy to carry. We planned for today to be our washing day so that we don't have to break into the Battlefield tour, starting tomorrow, to wash clothes.

We had scoped the launderettes near to the hotel in advance. So at 7.57am we left the hotel with our case of dirty clothes. The Launderette, called Maria Lavaderia, 

Is only three minutes walk from the hotel, it was open when we arrived.

So, we put our coins in the cash machine (€8.50 for a 14kg machine) and our clothes into the machine. 

The dryers are situated further along this compact space.

I left Drew with the washing while I walked back to the hotel. It looked especially fine on this bright June morning with the statue of António José de Almeida looking striking in front of the building.

I then continued the task of loading and naming the photos from Monday. An epic task, but I know it will be worthwhile, both for people looking at them now and for us when we come back to them in the future - as we often do. 

After the 28 minute wash Drew moved the clothes to the dryer for three sessions at €2.50 per 15 minutes and returned to the hotel at 9.50am Drew returns with a suitcase load of clean clothes.

We spent some time sorting and folding the clothes and putting them back into the two suitcases in the order we need them for the next few days.

Afternoon

I finally finish naming and uploading the 445 photos at 1pm. It was a busy day and I'm delighted at how good the photos are. Tired after my efforts I have a brief siesta at 1pm and am back up and eager for the rest of the day by 1.30pm.

While we had kept plans loose for today, as we didn't want to judge how long the washing would take in advance, we had looked at places we could visit today that we'd not seen on our previous visit, when we packed in a lot.

We decided to walk to Bela Vista Park, a 3 km walk from here. This was the outline route:

As it turned out it was two parks we were visiting, as the route to Bela Vista includes the paths of Parque Urbano do Vale da Montanha, a biodiversity park, developed to improve the 'Green Lungs of Lisbon'. Once a wasteland it is now the largest parkland in the city. This animation captures some of the experience of walking through the park tailored for walkers and cyclists.

The pay off at the top of Bela Vista park is the amazing view down to the Rio Tejo (known in English as the River Tagus) below.

 

With the bends and winds of the routes through the park our 3km walk became a 5 miles, 8km one.

We were especially impressed by the effective names given to the places in the park - this bridge is called Ponte Ciclopedonal do Parque Urbano Vale da Montanha i.e. Cycle and walking bridge of the Urban Park - it does just that bringing visitors across the railway/metro lines.

I said the pay off was the amazing view of the Rio Tejo, but perhaps even better was Drew's photo of this Common Buzzard in flight.

This ring tailed parakeet made a quick getaway

Having completed our walk we come to the main entrance gate of the park, which is an impressive steel constuction.

On leaving the park we make our way down to Bella Vista metro station 

We arrive at 3.45pm and tkae this opportunity to buy a 24 hour metro/bus ticket which will see us through to meeting our group and guide at the Airport arrivals tomorrow when most of them will be arriving by air - though four of us are in the country already. 

The ticket is €7.25 each, so we recoup the money after four €1.90 single trips. A good saving as we have already planned to do at least this many trips and may do more. 

We arrive back at the hotel at 4.30pm. and I upload the photos from yesterday onto Flickr while Drew has a bath. 

Dinner

At 6.40pm we leave for the second poncy dinner of the trip, but that is worth a whole blog post of its own.