Day 1/2

Day 1/2 Lisbon Flights were just OK. Both Asiana and Korean Air are much nicer than US Airways. It was only 6-7 hours from Philly to Lisbon so it was OK, but we need to remember to avoid Boeing 757 on long flights. We arrived at Lisbon 8:30 am and were surprised at how slow and inefficient immigration was at Lisbon airport. It took almost an hour to get through it. Our luggage was already waiting so we took a taxi to Hotel Santa Justa. Nice hotel in nice location. We left our luggage (room not ready) and started to walk until we found a Tourist Info office. Then we took a city tour bus to get oriented. It was narrated tour of most Lisbon neighborhoods with most time spent in Belem. Then back to hotel for 10 minute rest and out again. We had lunch in a little outdoor place near the hotel. It gets our stars for the best service. Ricardo bent over backwards to please us (his only non-Portuguese clients) and at the end offered us free pastries and liqueurs for desert. After lunch, we decided to try some of the things they mentioned on the tour – we started with Elevador Santa Justa, a metal tower right near our hotel, which took us to the neighborhood of Bairro Alto. From there we took a funicular down to Chiado, and from there another funicular up to another hill. Then we walked down back to the hotel. After a little rest, we walked up to the castle (nice hotel lady told us to take department store elevator up to the 8th floor to shorten hike). We walked to old Arab section of Alfama (not impressive) and ended up on a large square by the river where we had drinks in a large, very modern outdoor café. By then we were totally exhausted so dinner was pizza with Portuguese vinho verde. Got to bed after being up for 30 hours.