One of the driving factors of me visiting Portugal was the fact I'd been to a couple of places deeply influenced by it. Another driving factor is that I wanted to do a National Geographic tour with G Adventures and this was the one running during my birthday.
After a trying couple of days travelling and not a bad sleep, I was off to Lisbon at ass o clock in the morning. I knew that UK passports would have a lot more difficulty getting in to EU than a Canadian passport, so I entered on my Canadian passport. Pretty cool how that works.
I got into a Portuguese Uber and arrived at my hotel. The lobby of the hotel was very modern and spiffy. My room wasn't going to be available for a few hours but Lisbon is very walkable. The wonderful front desk person gave me a map and pointed out some really cool things and off I went. Portugal has a lot of really great food to offer but the first thing I wanted to do was have a McPlant. McDonalds here does not have McPlant so I made it a goal while in Europe to have one. They're really good! We should get them!
Walking around downtown Lisbon is a treat. It's a city on a hill. All of the sidewalks are made of limestone tiles. This isn't something limited to the tourist districts either - it is all over the country.
Sometimes the squares have building of historical importance (but no signage). In this case, the front of the building was mirrored in the tiles.
The tiles can also be entirely plain, but most times they will have a design in them.
Most of the buildings in the city are covered in beautiful tiles. The tiles are primarily blue and white, with occasional other colours.
Motifs on the tiles are generally floral or botanical and there will be more on them later.
When I get back to the hotel, I notice I'm in a single room. This strikes me as a bit odd but not unusual; there are many reasons why I could be in a single room. It could be that's just how it worked out with the room block, or I'm the only single female on the trip, or maybe I got an upgrade because I was nice to the front desk. At any rate, it's the fanciest hotel room I've ever been in. It's all glass and mirrors and marble. All the lights are controlled both at the door and beside the bed. The window opens! It's a juliet sized balcony window and it's wonderful. The blackout shade and the curtain operate by push button! The blackout shade is also the tits. Probably the best blackout shade I've ever seen, given that it went from the ceiling to the floor.
Next: Sintra? I hardly knew ha!
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