Kevnjan's new adventure.

Sun. 21st. Apr. First of all I'd like to apologise for the mistakes in Thursdays blog. It was done on the phone, with predictive script and anything can happen. Anyway, we arrived at a campsite in Lisbon on Friday afternoon, changed the beds, did the washing and were ready to go bright and early on Saturday. The site is a half hour bus ride away from the centre of town and not ideally located but the pitches are large, it's in a pleasant wooded area and the facilities are good. There are three families of what seem to be Irish tinkers camping near us with broods of unruly children, brand new caravans ahd top of the range Mercedes and Land Rover Discoveries. How do they manage that, I wonder. Anyway, we are out all day and they haven't bothered us so live and let live. We were in Lisbon city centre at 10am Saturday and located the tourist office and the bus stop for the open top tour bus. Armed with a map and our headphones off we went. The weather was perfect, sunny with a cool breeze and the city was our oyster. After a circuit of the place to get our bearings we alighted at the Belem Torre, a 16th. century fortress built at the edge of the River Tejo to repel all comers. It looks a bit like a cake, made of fancy icing. We paid our entry money and went to explore. The steps to the top were steep and narrow, Jan made it to the top but has been complaining of stiffness in her legs ever since. The views from the top were worth the climb. Next we looked at the monument to Henry the Navigator, very impressive, see picture. Returned to City Centre and Jan enjoyed some retail therapy while I enjoyed a beer. This is beer weather! Returned to van around 7pm. with sore feet and tired but happy. Sunday has been just as good, we rode the bus again and returned to Belem where we found a flea market which Jan enjoyed. Booked a 2 hour cruise up the river for the afternoon and got a totally different view of Lisbon. It's a bit of a sprawl, built over 7 hills, although the centre is fairly user friendly with trams, buses and funiculars to help with the climbing. It's a colourful city although not as striking, architecturally as I'd expected. Much of the city was destroyed in an earthquake in 1755 and rebuilt. There is a style of architecture here called, Manueline which is the work of King Manuel 1st in the early 16th century. It's very fussy and over the top and the Belem Torre is a good example of it. Not my favourite style. But you can't help liking Lisbon, it's just so laid back and easy going, just like the rest of Portugal. Tonight we had dinner on the pavement outside a nice restaurant in the centre and watched the world go by. The sun was warm and the atmosphere was relaxed. Summer's arrived for the Woodwards. More Lisbon tomorrow, can't wait.