An uncharacteristically short trip for us. Well, I say short, six days and two different countries – but not a lot of time to explore due to two of those being match days and one of them involving flying from Lisbon to Copenhagen.
It was incredibly frustrating trying to plan this trip, what with the Portuguese FA taking it right to the line with announcing which city the game would be played in. Whilst waiting for the announcement I even wrote a Substack about guessing which city and ending up watching the game the other end of the country.
Then it was a mad flurry trying to work out the logistics. Could we get a train? (Up until Covid you could get a train direct from Paris to Lisbon. That no longer runs and you have to change four times including an overnight in Spain.) Could we get direct flights? Could we fly from Cardiff if we opted for a change? How many of us were actually going? Trying to get a direct flight from Lisbon to Copenhagen with a reasonably reliable airline at a sensible time was doing my head in.
Then Megan suggested, “Shall we just go with Wonky?”
There are pros and cons about travelling with the official Wales travel club – as indeed there are pros and cons to every decision in life.
CONS:
1) It’s slightly more expensive than booking everything yourself.
2) The trips tend to be shorter than we normally like. Just a few days compared to the week-long trips we prefer.
THE PROS
1) Everything is ABTA guaranteed if it all goes pear-shaped. This is a big one, considering this trip involves two cities and flying out to one city and back from another. Also, the recent air traffic control issues have demonstrated the increased importance of insurance.
2) Whilst we enjoy travelling on our own, there’s a lot to be said for travelling with a couple of dozen other Wales fans.
3) We don’t have to sweat over the planning.
4) Dave and Laura Wonky are good eggs. It’s not like we are travelling with a faceless international company.
As it is only a flying visit the usual pre-planning and research was limited to listening to some local Fado music and downloading an album of Portuguese stoner rock. (Some of this, including some Danish techno and Ska-punk, made it onto the latest Peppermint Iguana Radio show, which you can listen to here https://peppermintiguana.co.uk/listen-again-361/ )
As the day of departure approached it was very frustrating seeing other mates already out in Portugal sight seeing. I was struck with a bad case of FOMO. But hey, we are having six days away in two very different countries. You can’t do it all. Where would you put the fridge magnets?
Our flight from Heathrow is quite early. But when you factor in having to be at the airport three hours before, and travelling to get to Heathrow, you’re soon in the realms of having to get up before you’ve gone to bed. On the other hand, our recent trip to Berlin was a very civilised time and we casually rocked up to the airport early afternoon. Which was nice. But it did mean that by the time we got to the hotel the pubs were shut.
We briefly (very briefly) considered a hotel in Heathrow the night before our flight, but decided to stay with Megan’s sister in London. As her offspring are flying the nest for university, she has spare beds.
Even though we stayed in London, we still had to get up before we normally go to bed, but at least we didn’t have to drive far. At five of the AMs we were tucking into a Whetherspoons breakfast in Heathrow.
The flight was longer than I thought, because I had factored in an hour’s time difference. But dispite being almost one thousand miles away, we are on the same longitude. In fact, Lisbon is slightly west of Cardiff. So there is no time difference.
I’ll skip through the transfers and checking in, became like I said, Wonky have got their shit together and everything went smoothly.
Soon we are wandering down to the FAW pick up hotel. Down being the operative word here. Lisbon is very hilly. Like a cross between San Fransisco and Bargoed, but with less drugs. And it was thirty five of the celsiuses.
After picking up our match tickets we head to the hotel bar. Often this is where you can catch up with lots of Wales fans but this place is quite expensive and the only Welsh face we spot was a member of the FAW, who I’ll not name for security reasons. We are knackered so order drinks, to hell with the cost.
There’s a lot of faffing about with the head barman appearing to not like how the barmaid was making Megan’s gin and tonic. It’s gin. And tonic. She seemed to be doing a good job at the simple task, but the barman threw the inferior G&T down the sink and started to make a new one in a totally unnecessarily flamboyant style. He looked like Tom Cruise in the film Cocktail.
I tried to pay but he was off throwing limes in the air and slicing them as they came down, for a bloke that wanted a lager and lime. I wandered off deciding he’d soon get his act together if I tried to walk out without paying.
We sit chatting with the FAW crachach then a few more of the Saga wing of the Wonky Sheep Massive arrived, also knackered from the walk. We chat about public transport in Lisbon and zimmer frames for a while, then our friend from the FAW heads off and very kindly picks up our tab. So it looked like an expensive hotel, but we never got to find out. Cheers mate.
We continue our walk down towards the river. Well, we assume we are going in the right direction, rivers tend to be at the bottom of hills, rather than the top.
We had already decided we would skip our traditional routine of doing a walking tour to get our bearings, due to the hills and the heat. And the hills. We had heard you could get a Tuktuk tour, but where on earth would we find a Tuktuk in Lisbon? It turns out they are everywhere. You can’t move for them. As we walk down the road swatting off Tuktuk drivers like flies, Megan makes an excited little squeaking noise. There was a little red Fiat 500 convertible with a guy offering tours.
“Wouldn’t it be great doing a tour in that?” Megan squeaked. “Come on then, let’s do it” I replied, always looking to make the love of my life happy. I’m good like that (sorry ladies, I’m taken).
Lisbon is often referred to as The City of Seven Hills, because… I’m sure you can work out why.
Portugal was very much a seafariing nation and it was the first of the European nations to build an empire, although it is often forgotten about compared with the empires some of it’s European neighbours. At its peak the ruled parts of Asia, Africa and South America. To this day Portuguese is still the official language of Brazil.
Lisbon is built on the banks of the River Tagus, which is more of a bay than a river, making it perfect for shipping. Whilst we are in the city there’s a huge ocean-going cruise ship in dock.
Most of the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1775. What wasn’t destroyed by the earthquake itself was destroyed by fire because the quake tipped over someone’s barbecue, although the fire didn’t last long because a Tsunami caused by the earthquake put the fire out.
Anyway, it’s all been rebuilt now and our teeth are soon jangling as our little Fiat 500 is juddering along the old cobbled streets. Walking tours are great to get to know a city. You learn the history, get your bearings and appreciate the city more for the rest of the trip. They can be knackering though, and you struggle to retain all the information. This little adventure was the opposite. We didn’t get any steps in, and there was just enough information to be informative, but not so much as to make your brain hurt.
We learned about the Portuguese tradition of decorating buildings with tiles, we went to the highest point of the city to take some photographs and we went past a church which had been partially built for two centuries (it seems that making gin and tonics is not the only thing they take their time over) before the builders ran out of cigarettes in the 1960s, rolled up their sleeves and finished in in two years.
Most of the streets we zip around are narrow, steep and cobbled. Perfect for an ‘ickle Fiat 500. However, even this little car cannot navigate Alfama, the only district to survive the earthquake, with its narrow alleyways and steep steps.
Our tour ends on the outskirts of Alfama. A perfect place to start exploring the old streets. We sit in a cafe, share a jug of sangria and a pizza (they are not big on veggie food from what we have seen so far) and look at some steep steps. We decide to tick Alfama off the list of things we have done, just by looking at it without knackering ourselves going up the steps.
The restaurant we had chosen was opposite the Fado museum, so we called in for a look around. Be rude not to.
Fado is a traditional Portuguese brand of folk music which originated in Lisbon back in 1820. It’s a very emotional music in which singers pour their hearts out. There are many Fado bars in Lisbon, intimate venues where you can be up close and personal with performers who put their heart and soul into this passionate expression of the human soul. They take it very seriously here. The museum features classical Fado guitars, paintings and stories of some of Fado’s greatest performers. It’s an interesting insight into a music I know very little about, but also an insight into what makes Portuguese people tick, because Fado encapsulates the Portuguese spirit.
In the spirit of openness though, I have to say that, musically, it’s not really my cup of tea. The museum was worth a visit though.
We walk back towards the river, stopping at a cafe for vegetarian paella and beers. The city is well and truly filling up with Red Wall now. We spot red shirts entering and exiting little doors, presumably access to Airbnbs in the old town. Then think about the hill up to our hotel.
Then we think about Uber (other taxi apps are available).
Whilst Facebook was telling us Pink Street was rocking to the sound of Welsh voices singing, in the last 36 hours we had only had 3 hours sleep. Discretion is the better part of valour and all that jazz.
We are soon sat in a rather luxurious Chinese car heading out of the city. To get to the harbour we had come out of the hotel, walked a few hundred yards, then turned left and kept going. The taxi took an incredibly convoluted route that took almost as long as it took to walk. At one point I was wondering if there was more than one Moxy Hotel and we had given the wrong one. But we soon found ourselves outside the correct hotel and for the two of us the cost was cheaper than buying a metro ticket.
Megan had read online that our hotel had a rooftop bar so we went up to the top floor to finish the night off. Then back down to the ground floor bar because there is no rooftop bar.
Alcohol is something most of us consume to liven ourselves up for a party. The idea of throwing drinks down your neck so you make sure you are drunk when you go to bed seems a bit pointless when you think about it.
We did it anyway.