Sunday 30^th September – Cascais

38:41.448N 9:25.138W

Today we went into Lisbon by train, a half hour journey, armed with our Lonely Planet guide to Mediterranean Europe.  The last time we visited Lisbon was three years ago on the Oriana and we saw where we had docked as we arrived at the train station.

This time we decided to visit the Castelo de Sao Jorge which sits high on the hill above Lisbon with great views over the city, as we had not visited it on our previous visit.  We took the metro and then a tram journey through the narrow streets up the hill to the castle. 

We roamed around the grounds and castle walls enjoying the views and then walked down, through the Alfama district, which is full of tiny cobbled and slanting streets, incredibly quaint, apart from the graffiti which takes away a little of the charm.

We then wandered around the central part of the city, remembering the bits from the last time we were there and then decided to finish by re-visiting the large square down at the waterfront, Praca do Comercio, where previously there had been an exhibition.

We arrived just as a group of men in naval whites were getting onto a stage and tuning up instruments ready for a concert. 

We picked up a chair and put it at the end of a row, and sat down.  When I say we picked up chairs, I mean it literally – there was a van kept turning up with plastic chairs in the back and they were handing them to anyone who wanted to stay for the concert.  Maybe they were a bit late setting up and that is why it was self-service, but no-one minded.  Being a wicked sod, I set our chairs on the front row; this was the only way I could think of to guarantee Richard wouldn’t try to leave half way through. 

Anyway, we enjoyed an excellent 1 ½ hours of entertainment courtesy of the Portuguese Navy concluding with a big band medley of Deep Purple !

At the end, during the final applause, there was a standing ovation.  Obviously there would now be an encore.  This was a tune that the whole audience knew (except Richard and me) and involved some complex clapping routine.  We sat politely through it and then joined in the next standing ovation.  As everyone was standing there, the band struck up with a song that everyone joined in with, clapping along and singing.  It was a jolly little number that I recognised as the Portuguese national anthem (from the World Cup – I bet that surprises those of you that know I don’t watch football).  Anyway, we clapped along, not knowing the words, hoping no-one would notice.

What a fabulous time we had.

We came back to the marina and decided to try one of the nearby restaurants as it was getting late.  We had the most fantastic Paella.  We couldn’t finish it and so the restaurant offered to wrap it for us so that we could take it away.  We couldn’t refuse – it’ll be great for lunch tomorrow.

Exhausted, we have returned to the boat.