Wellington in Portugal - The French Invasions Thwarted - Day 1

 

Today we begin the tour which is at the centre of this holiday as we join the tour guide, historian and fellow travellers on The Cultural Experience's Tour called Wellington in Portugal - The French Invasions Thwarted. We were firmly reminded from the start that these were three separate invasions during the period of the Peninsular War.

Obidos Castle, above, is emblematic of some of the sights we are likely to see. In a place built to defend Obidos by the Moors, the Portuguese royals were to live. At the beginning of our period it became a French position overlooking the protentional threat posed by the British in the Atlantic. Before long it was Wellesley (later named Wellington) who was in charge here, knocking out arrow slots to place a 6lbs cannon to defend against the French - which is why there is a glass window looking out of place at the centre of the cannon, known colloqually as Wellington's Window.

But more of that later, now to the beginning of the day.

Early Morning

I'm back to waking at the civilised time of  3.30am, so could begin the post about our day in Lisbon yesterday. With that drafted, ready for Drew to check later, I made a start on editing last night's photos. 

At 5.30am I start my ablutions, breakfast starts at 6.30am today as it isn't a Public Holiday or weekend.

Drew wakes up at 6am and reviews the blog, which I uploaded while he is having his ablutions. 

Breakfast

The breakfast spread at this hotel is really good. We go down to breakfast and are among only four others who are as early as us. 

Drew begins with bacon, mushrooms, hash browns and rice.

I with yogurt, fruit, nuts and seeds

I then proceed with a salad with smoked salmon and boiled eggs - delicious.

Drew also has some salad, but joins it with rice in a peri peri sauce.

I have some cooked food - Empanadas, mushrooms, tomatoes and brown bread

Drew finsihes with four cakes, one chocolate, two almond and a raisin one.

Morning

We go back up to the room after breakfast. We had plans to visit some of the sights of the city this morning before checking out and travelling to the airport to meet the tour guide and the fellow tourists. 

However, both by observation, through the window, and a check of the forecast, how did the fast show put it - scorchio!!  We decided that the idea of a trip to elsewhere in the city might be way to hot a way to spend our day. It was 92f i.e. 31c, with the wind raising the feel of the heat to 95f - 33c. Not our kind of weather.

I used the time finished the blog of last night's dinner and began uploading photos to Flickr from yesterday. A fun task with the amazing views in Bela Vista park. 

Drew finished yet another of the books he has on his kindle, he is now onto the third book of the holiday.  

We finally departe the hotel at 1.15pm and were grateful we hadn't tried earlier when we walked out into the blazing sun. 

We strolled, mainly in the shade, to the Saldanha station, just six minutes from the hotel.

We went down stairs to the underground - our fourth journey on our 24 hour ticket, so making savings even without any trips this morning. We reach the platform at 1.25pm just as the train for the airport arrives. 

We are on the red line, the one that brought us in on Tuesday. Five stops and we are at Oriente and another three

and we reach Humberto Delgado Airport 

We arrive at the meeting point - Ponto de Encontro (a nice way of expressing it, the idea of encounter being much more engaging than just meeting) at 1.43pm. We took a dreaded selfie to tell the rest of the group what we looked like, I really, really can't do good selfie, it is an art and one I fail at.  

and at 2.10pm. We are joined by Elizabeth from New York who has the app with her. She is a former lawyer who lives on 85th street overlooking Riverside Drive. Somewhere we walked past in 2011, the year hurricane Irene gave us a extra stay in the city.

Then we go over and meet those arriving by plane at 3.30pm the plane has landed at 2.15pm

By 3.51pm we are on the coach and heading to Óbidos the location of our overnight stop. 

Fiona (Fi) Richards the tour guide begins the journey with a brief introduction to herself, she has been with The Cultural Experience since 2018 and Mark Crathorne, the trip historian. He has done over 120 battlefield tours over the years. 

The road to Óbidos 

Mark introduces himself, he originates in England but has lived in Portugal for 37 years after learning the language while working in Brazil. 

He has a special interest in Wellington and reminds us that four of the six years of the Peninsular War, Wellington was based here in Portugal as were most of his troops. Though the larger battles happened in Spain, Portugal was where the war was established and the logistics needed for the further invasion underpinned.

Mark explains that we are going to Óbidos as the first engagement of the Peninsular War was near Óbidos a town founded by the Romans which has developed over the centuries since. 

As we travel we cross the second line of Torres Vedras, which was never used as the first line stopped the French. Nine signalling stations along the line supported by the Royal Navy who built high towers on hills, still used for communications now, we pass them. As we do Hill Fort 150 one of the last of the 152 forts to be built. All the photos are Flickr, but a few are captured in this animation 

Torres Vedras means green towers and the defences were used by Wellington to cover the area from sea (Atlantic) to the Rio Tejo. The hills were already tghere, but Wellington connected them and built forts on them to defend against the French. The first one worked so well that the second, third and fourth (across the River Tejo from Lisbon) were never used. 

Mark also points out the Battle of Roliça took place at the top of the high ground we are passing (also in the animation above. This was first battle of Wellington's expeditionary force on the 17th of August 1808.

The Three French Invasions

Mark goes on to outline the three French Invations of Portugal 

The first in 1808 under General Junot, the second in 1809 under General Soult and the third in 1810-11

Óbidos 

Óbidos is an ancient town which has seen rule by Romans, Visigoths, Moors and then Portuguese rulers who made it the town of the Queen. The history of the town is well capturerd here, the timeline is particularly helpful. 

Here are some of the sites of Óbidos 

We stop here for a short time, before going to our hotel just outside the town, to connect the town to the Peninsular War.

The Battle of Brilos was the first time the French fight against the British and there were six deaths. The site is visible from the Castle Hill in Óbidos, 

but we will see more of it tomorrow.

Wellington stayed in the town for a night and defended it, as I said at the beginning of the post, by placing one of his smaller Canon in what is now the castle window. This was to stop the French approaching Óbidos from the sea. The valley was tidal and navigable at the time  

Hotel

Having left Óbidos at 5.55pm we arrive at the Hotel Vila d'Óbidos at 6pm. We have a speedy check in, go to our room

The balcony of the room even gives us a great view of Óbidos castle in the distance.

We return to the bar at 6.45pm for welcoming drinks and a talk by Mark which looked in detail at the First French invasion and then in headlines about the second and third, to put into context all we are going to see for the rest of the week. 

Dinner

We then went to dinner and began with Vieiras Gratinadas - gratinated scallops. It was light and tasty and the lettuce had a zingy vinegerette.  

Bread was served with the meal

and we went on to a potato, carrot, onion and garlic soup - this was slightly sweet, but wasn't very garlicly

Our main was Bacalhau à Braga, a traditional Portuguese cod dish that combines fried cod loins topped with braised peppers, tomatoes, onions and garlic, we know where the garlic from the soup went, as there is plenty of it here. It was served with broccoli and baked potatoes.

Dessert came and half was for me and half for Drew, so I eat to portions of pineapple and two strawberries and Drew are two chocalte cakes and two ice-creams.

We had an entertaining evening with Alasdair and Gavin sitting beside us. Friends who met in the University of London 40+ years ago and have now left their wives and children/grandchildren for this week of travelling to Wellington's battles. Were telling tales of the Spanish version of this trip which they did last year.

The meal finished with a coffee

 We came back upstairs and edited today's photos, we got to bed at 11pm.

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.

From Spain to Portugal

Today, we took our next journey of the holiday. It was a day of Coach travel, a gentle and relaxing day, but one in which we travelled from Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

It was the story of two buses with the first, above, taking us from Santiago de Compostela to Porto and the second, below, taking us from Porto to Lisbon

In planning the holiday today was the last day to get sorted. From the first day I looked at this journey Alsa, the Spanish Coach company, only showed one journey on their website, a direct one from Santiago de Compostela to Lisbon, but arriving in the late evening. But I had the patience to wait before booking and finally two weeks ago the option of a change between providers at Porto, getting us into Lisbon at 4.30pm became available to book. I suspect I could have booked the two elements separately, but I have experience of Spain's long distance coach company and not Portugal's (calle Rede Expressos).

With that background let's get on with the day itself.

Morning

I woke up even later than the day before, at 5.30am, I start to set the blog post for yesterday up, but don't make much progress, as I've not had time to load photos from Drew's camera onto the web. So, that process keeps me busy until I begin my ablutions at 6.00am that done I put the final items (toothbrush and paste, plus razor and shaving gel into the case.) Drew gets up at 6.15am and does the same.

Breakfast 

We are down for breakfast at 7am as usual, the pattern for breakfast is familiar to us now. Drew begins with his sausage, egg and bacon.

and I with my yogurt, nuts, seeds and oats.

Today my second plate was a salad, there is so much to choose from here I had to try a bit of each. It came served with small balls of Mozzarella and a taramasalata with paprika

Drew moved on to his second plate with Pilgrim's Cake and Galician Cheesecake and hazelnut and raisin bread with some of the amazing blue cheese.

I finished with treats from the Galician table, this delightful food will bring lovely reminders of Galicia back to me, every time I see or use paprika.

Heading off

We get back to the room at 7.50pm. We check we have everything with us and use the toilet before clicking on the online checkout to depart the room at 8.25am for the walk to the Bus Station. 

This walk is the reverse of the one we did on Saturday when we walked up from the Train Station.

Because this is Santiago de Compostela and there are always something new around the corner, today's walk led us into a group of horse-riders.

Not the kind of thing you expect to see on an average morning.

I also stopped to post our postcards - I'd bought Spanish stamps after all, and we were about to go to Portugal. 

Alsa from Santiago de Compostela to Porto

We arrive at the Bus Station at 9.05am 

for the 9.30am Alsa Coach to Porto (or Oporto as the British strangely called it). The bus departs right on time. We are on the upper deck in seats 44 and 45. 

The bus has WiFi and a toilet, not as plush as the Norwegian Vy buses but a long way up from National Express in both space and comfort. 

This is our route for the day

We pass through lush green valleys

We arrive at our first stop Pontevedra at 10.15am.

 we are due to depart at 10.30am and do just that. 

We then cross the mighty River Minho the border between Galicia and Portugal.

A minute or two later we arrive at Valença at 10.05am. We have crossed the border into Portugal and while Galicia and Portugal are on the same longitude, Galicia keeps the same time as the rest of Spain (and lots of Europe) while Portugal is on the same time as the UK. So, the clock goes back an hour. 

Having missed the welcome to Valença signs I did get the signas we left the town.

I make good use of the Bus' WiFi to catch-up with emails and Google reviews etc while Drew sits and reads his Kindle. The hills and valleys are still as lush as earlier, but now the churches take on a new and distinctive look.

We arrive at Porto Airport at 11.30am 

and depart at 11.40am. 

Then we are on to Porto Campanhã Bus Station where we arrive at 11.55am. 35 minutes before schedule. 

We have a scheduled wait of 45 minutes for the bus to Lisbon making the wait now 1 hour twenty we head up stairs to the cafeteria area.

Which was hectic but we found a table for two and I ordered a cheese, tomato and onion slice for Drew and a cheese, broccoli, peppers, onion and parsley one for me. With a sparkling water for me 'salgadas' in Portuguese not agua con gas and Coke Zero (not the Spanish Cero) for Drew 

Porto to Lisbon

We went to the Rede Expressos ticket office and turned our Alsa ticket to a Rede Expressos one (they had hard copy ones pre-printed for us in the office, not sure why this couldn't have been done online like the main ticket! 

As I mentioned above, this trip, though booked through Alsa is a joint one between the Spanish and Portuguese providers.

 

This bus is a single decker but with better air-con than the last one. The seats are comfortable and I get back to my blogging while Drew gets back to his Kindle. 

We leave at precisely 1.15pm. These bus times have been perfect. There is only one stop between Porto and Lisbon on this route - Fatima (from Shrine to Shrine, though we don't intend to stop at this one) where we arrive at 3.15pm exactly as the timetable says. My parents visited this City on two or three occasions and really enjoyed the experience. 

We arrive at the bus stop at Lisbon Oriente at  4.35 on schedule. Lisbon Oriente (Lisbon East) is an integrated tranport hub with coaches, underground and mainline rail all in the same area. The bus station is made up of five platforms and each of them has stairs down to the level below for access to the Rail Station or Metro. 

We go down one and then one more level to the metro 

and are in the platform by 4.47pm. The next train is at 4.50pm and is on time. 

It is 7 stops on the Linha Vermelha (Red Line) to Saldanha station. 

and a gentle walk from there to the Holiday Inn

We choose this hotel because we stayed here when Drew was running the half-marathon in 2023. We had enhanced status having stayed for almost a week in a Holiday Inn in 2019 in Alaska, due to Covid the points were extended and we had an executive room at no extra cost. The hotel proved to be high class accommodation with a wonderful breakfast service and was convenient for underground, buses and other facilities. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to make Holiday Inns our hotels of choice on the European holiday we did later that year and we adopted the same approach in Australia in 2024. It was less practical in Norway in 2025, as the brand isn't available there.

We checked in and were settled in our room by 5.20pm. Having written the blog post about Monday on the journey all I needed to do when arriving in the hotel was upload the pictures to the blog and make any weblinks and then I was able to publish that extensive post at 6.50pm. A perfect time for dinner. 

Dinner

Two blocks from the hotel is a small Vietnamese Restaurant called A Cozinha Vietnamita. We had eaten here on our previous visit to Lisbon and, while small, it has really high quality authentic Vietnamese tastes. 

At the time I described it like this:

It might have looked like it was a hole in a wall and it quickly became clear that the staff were a husband, wife and their two children (well they weren't really staff, but were sent out to buy fresh ingredients as they were needed), but the quality of the food was excellent.

Well the two children have now grown up and the boy is now a stocky 18 year old and his bossy sister is 15 or 16 and does the orders. The mother still appears occasionally from the kitchen. It is a friendly place, with great food. 

We shared Nem Viet Nam, the crunchy pork spring rolls which are common throughout South East Asian cuisine. Here they are crispy and delicious and have a vinegar and vegetable sauce - we liked it so much we even eat the veg. 

and this was followed by Banh Bot Loc, a prawn and chicken dumpling cooked in rice paper. The dumplings are so tender and the rice paper lets you see the prawn (whole) chicken and herbs inside. The flavour of the meat and fish is beautifully complemented by the generous amount of lamb leaves in the dish. The sauce is a sesame seed and soy mix.

We had a third starter a Japanese Gyoza with a sharp tangy sauce made up of Soy Sauce, Rice Vinegar and Japanese Chili Oil . Like all these dishes they arrive when they are cooked, but in this case they arrived when I was eating one of the other dishes, so didn't make it onto the camera.

We than had our mains Pho for both of us Pho Ga (chicken) for Drew

and Pho Bo (Beef for me)

Both Phos were delicious, full of fresh vegetables, herbs and chillies with the broth clearly made from a stock of bones boiled for hours, so, so good.

We walk back to the hotel, I check the photos from today, ready to be writing this and adding them this morning, and we go to bed at 10pm, remembering that for our bodies this is 11pm, as we woke up in a different time zone.