This was the last stop in continental Europe for this cruise. Our only previous visit to Lisbon wasn’t great, so our expectations weren’t very high.
For the first day, we booked a tour to “Medieval Obidos,” a small, walled town about 70 km from Lisbon. Although the bus ride seemed very long and the guide gave us more statistics than we wanted about the population of Portugal, etc., the little town was very nice. This was not yet the tourist season, so there was only one other bus there and we had the town pretty much to ourselves. Apparently the town had been the traditional gift of a Portuguese king to his bride for hundreds of years. The town was in very good shape and the walls were intact and accessible. Best of all, from Adele’s point of view, there were dozens of little shops selling unusual local arts and crafts. She shopped, I took pictures, and we both had a great time for the two hours we were there.
Toward the end, I had a special, local treat - a “copo da ginja.” Ginja (pronounced zheenzhah) is a sweet cherry liqueur. For €1, you get a shot of the stuff. It is really good. However, the piece de resistance is the fact that the ginja is served in a cup made out of chocolate. After you finish the ginja, you eat the cup. Since I am a strong advocate of recycling, I thought this was such a good solution, I had two of them!
When we got back to the ship, we checked out possibilities for the next day. Unfortunately, it seemed that the main parts of town were accessible only via public transit - and public transit was not at all close to the ship. Since I was a bit under the weather (a recurrence of the Prinsendam croup) we just stayed on the boat and didn’t do much for the second day in Lisbon.