Leaving Scotland - One Last Quick Visit to Edinburgh
Thursday morning, we figured we had enough time (with an early start) to head back into Edinburgh to explore for a few hours before heading to the airport for our flight. We woke up to a much nicer day, got ourselves packed up, and hopped back on the bus.
The castle, on our very nice last day in Scotland.
The gardens around the castle were open, so we started with a walk through them. They are quite beautiful, even this late I the season. From there we walked back up the steep hill to the castle, but sadly, there is no way to even get into the outer area.
A full view of the whole castle, from down in the gardens.
This was complicated by the fact that they were taking down this huge searing construction that they set-up every year for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. The Tattoo is held each August and is a performance by Commonwealth (and guests from other countries) military bands. We’ve seen pictures, and it looks pretty spectacular. The seating they put up for the event is amazing, and it’s hard to believe they put it up and take it down every year. It takes like 6 weeks.
Yes, that huge metal structure is “temporary”. They put it up and take it down every year. It’s kind of hard to fathom.
As some of the shops along the Royal Mile were open, we ducked into a shop near the castle to look around. We were in there for 20 minutes or so, and came back out to a huge line for entrance into the castle - there were hundreds of people waiting. We didn’t have tickets, or enough time for that anyway - another reason to come back.
We went back down the Royal Mile, then circled around the "back" of the castle to get a complete picture of the fabulous place. As we were wandering, we found a cemetery and explored a bit. From there, we came back around onto the Main Street. We went back over to the area where we had dinner last night, exploring more of the commercial shopping streets and popping into a couple of more shops. We did not have a lot of time, so we really focused on a small area of the city. It was beautiful, and definitely needs a return visit.
We thought of Lisa and Ethan for this one! Sadly it was too early for them to be open, or we would have gone in for sure!
Before too long, it was time to hop on a bus back to the hotel to collect our bags and head to the airport. We were flying Ryanair from Edinburgh to Lisbon, and as a low cost airline they have a reputation for being sticklers for things like bag sizes and weight. We were a little worried about the weight of our checked bags, especially after adding all that scotch. There was a pretty big line for check in, but it went surprisingly smoothly, and we had no issues. I guess we had no need to worry.
Off to Portugal!
Our airport hotel in LIsbon - it was fine, and walking distance from the airport.
This year was Michael’s (Justine’s dad) 80th birthday, and he wanted to go to Portugal as part of his celebrations. That was really the focus of this trip. We added the stop in Scotland along the way, but Portugal was the main event!
We were meeting Michael and Maureen in Lisbon, as the starting point for the joint part of our holiday. They had arrived the day before, and were already settled into their hotel downtown and had spent the day exploring.
One of the most famous sculptures in Lisbon, in a square near Michael and Maureen’s hotel.
We had a lot planned for our time in Portugal - an evening in Lisbon; driving from Lisbon north to Porto, spending a few days there; driving back south to a beach town called Ericeira to spend a few days, then wrapping up this amazing trip in Lisbon for a day before heading home.
It was a lot of travel, moving from place to place, but we were excited for it, and felt that it should be a lot of fun! It was great that we were going to be able to spend so much time together.
Our flight from Edinburgh was a little delayed. It always happens - you’re organized and on time and everything gets delayed. When you’re late, everything is on time. It never fails. The airport in Edinburgh is fairly small, but we had time to grab some lunch and browse the various shops around the concourse. We bought a bottle of gin to take with us - local stuff that we wanted to try. We’re all big gin and tonic people, so there was no doubt that we’d go through a bottle during our week together.
The flight was nowhere near as bad as we had feared and we arrived into Lisbon around 6 p.m. local time. The hotel Justine had booked us for the night was right at the airport - less than a 10 minute walk from the terminal, which was perfect.
We were picking up a rental car in the morning, so this was going to make that processes easier. After getting checked in and dropping off our luggage, we walked back to the airport and took the metro back into the heart of Lisbon. Justine’s parents were staying right I the heart of the old city. It was really a perfect location for exploring Lisbon. I have been to Lisbon 3-4 times before (mainly for work), and had always liked the city. It brought back quite a few memories as we found the local landmarks that I had seen on past trips.
As I mentioned, the hotel that Maureen and Michael were staying at was in the old part of the city, in the Baixa ("Downtown"). The narrow streets are all cobblestone, paved in the unique, Portuguese way. Nearby was the amazing Santa Justa Lift (Elevador de Santa Justa), an elevator in the historic center of Lisbon. It’s situated at the end of Rua de Santa Justa, and it connects the lower streets of the Baixa with the higher Largo do Carmo (Carmo Square). I’ve never actually been inside it, but it’s pretty amazing considering it opened in 1902. It has a very Eiffel Tower feel to it.
The metro put us out only a couple of blocks from where we were meeting, and we met up, checked out their cool hotel and went for dinner on the main drag. While a bit touristy, dinner (and the wine) was excellent and it gave us all a chance to catch up.
Dinner the first night in Lisbon. Despite being in a very touristy restaurant, we never did find a better version of this dish, and we certainly did try!
We were planning on an early start, so we did not make it too late a night. We walked back to their hotel with them, then got back on the metro to return to our hotel.
The Drive to Porto and a Stop in Obidos
The next morning we walked back over to the airport and picked up our rental car. We got a pretty nice car, a Peugeot SUV that ended up barely fitting all of our collective luggage. But it drove nice and was a hybrid, so we had high hopes for less money spent on fuel. While that didn’t materialize, we were blessed with a perfect day - sunny, warm and a bright blue sky to start our travels under.
Jus and I went back to the hotel to collect our bags and I got my first taste of driving in Portugal. They have an odd combination of roundabouts and traffic lights that takes a bit to navigate. And unlike the UK, drivers are aggressive and do not follow the rules in the roundabouts quite the same way - you push yourself through where you want to go. You need to have your head on a swivel as you’re driving.
After picking up our luggage, we headed down into the old city in Lisbon to pick up Maureen and Michael. I was pretty stressed about driving into the old medieval city, with its narrow, steep, windy cobblestone streets. Their hotel was right in the center of all that, made worse by numerous street closures. But we made it fine, having to jam the car into a non-parking spot to get the luggage loaded. But that seems to be the norm, and people were pretty patient with us.
Before long we were off, and driving in Lisbon was not that bad after all. I had forgotten about the big, wide boulevards they like in many parts of the city. We headed out of Lisbon and got onto the highway, and that part was a pleasure. They have toll roads that are beautifully maintained and rated at 120 km/h. And they were most empty! We cruised north, making great time as we headed for Porto.
A look at the impressive walled city of Obidos.
There was this kind of view around every corner in the city.
Along the way, we were planning a few stops to see some sights. Justine and Michael had done lots of research prior to the trip and had picked out a few options for us to stop and explore on our travels.
Unanimously, the walled city of Obidos was our first stop. And what a stop. This place dates back to Roman times, with evidence of an abandoned Roman hill town in the 5th century. The Visigoths and the Moors all had historic settlements on the site, and the Moorish castle was taken in the 1100s by the first King of Portugal. It looks like the current castle was built in the 1400s, and is everything you imagine in a castle.
We entered through a small gate in the castle walls that opened onto this amazing little cafe (with a huge cage of finches in the courtyard!), that sadly was not open at that time.
We spent a couple of hours exploring the inner city, with its labyrinth of narrow, steep streets and alleyways. We somehow managed to get separated. Justine and I explored more of the castle itself, even walking along the top of the fortifications. This is unlike anything you would see back home - from a safety perspective. The walls are in places 30 or 40’ high, and maybe 3 feet wide with no railings or safety guides in place at all. And people are going both directions, passing each other with this huge drop to the streets below. It’s so refreshing not to be "safetied" to death. But you could literally just fall off. So cool…
Inside the main gate is this amazing work of tiled art and I found my favorite use for an old church - they turned it into a bookstore! They left the alter in place, but everything else was bookshelves. So cool. You could easily spend days exploring, but we needed to keep moving. We met Michael and Maureen back down close to the car and continued on our journey.
A little pano of the town, from the castle walls.
About an hour further north, continuing on these amazing, smooth and empty toll highways, we cut back towards the coast into the small beach town of Figueria da Foz.
I think that we figured out that “Foz” is a delta where a river enter the ocean. This is a huge delta, and it looked like the city (?) was quite the port. On the way into the downtown, we passed the port area, crossing by this very cool bridge. I think we were all hoping to drive it, but that was not the direction we were headed.
The main drag of the town followed the coast, and the beach was huge! It went on for miles, and it wa sa long way from the start of the beach to where the water is. And judging by the facilities along the beach, it wasn’t that the tide was out. This looked like a great place to stop for lunch.
There was a main drag near the beach, so we parked the car and explored a bit before finding a restaurant with a nice patio. It was a fish restaurant and we had the kind of meal that we had all been thinking about since we arrived in Portugal. Maureen and I each had a skewer of fresh prawns and squid, grilled to perfection, while Justine and Michael shared a seafood platter with prawns, mussels, clams, crab and this awesome rice they seem to do here everywhere. And all for such a reasonable price. If this was going to be the standard, we were going to eat well!
Our drive from Lisbon to Porto - about 3 1/2 hours, if you did it straight. We made some stops to explore.
We continued north up to Porto, and the next post will cover that part of the trip in more detail. But I will share one photo as a sneak peak - this was the view from our apartment in Porto. It was hard to believe.