Lisbon again! Why so soon? It’s the starting point of a 3-week cruise with my brother down to Cape Town, with ports in Madeira, the Canary Islands, and several sites along Africa’s Atlantic coast. Not that I need an excuse to return to Lisbon; I fell in love with this scenic, vibrant city (and its delicious food and wine) when I was here last month.
As an aside, food is so important here that many expressions are food-related: when a person is in such a foul mood that you don’t want to go near them, he’s “with the olive oils.” Someone who has lots of experience doing something has had “many years turning chickens.”
We arrived mid-afternoon on the 28th and checked into the hotel Casual Belle Epoque, located in the oldest part of the city, the Alfama district. The hotel was basic but clean, a fine resting place for one night.
As originally scheduled, the cruise was supposed to leave on the 29th. The Lisbon harbor pilots, alas, had a different idea, calling a 48-hour work stoppage that kept us in port until the wee hours of December 1. With extra time in Lisbon, my brother and I toured the Museu Nacional do Azulejo, which is devoted to the history of decorative tile-making in Portugal.
Many buildings in Lisbon are adorned in these tiles, some dating back to the early 1500s. The museum has spare but beautiful exhibits explaining the craft and showing how tile art has changed through the centuries. On the third floor, a panoramic tile display shows Lisbon as it was before an earthquake in 1755 destroyed the city. The museum, which is built on the site of a former church, also houses an ornate Chapel of St. Anthony.
And now to the Azamara saga. To quote Cool Hand Luke (1967, starring Paul Newman and George Kennedy – see it if you haven’t already!), what we have here is a failure to communicate. Several events leading up to the cruise resulted in a diminished itinerary and the aforementioned departure delay. Then the Port’s computer system went down for several hours, precluding us from boarding until mid-to-late afternoon.
These events were not Azamara’s fault, but, throughout the cruise, communications from the company ranged from nonexistent (regarding the computer crash) to inconsistent (relating to itinerary changes, yellow fever vaccination requirements, COVID protocols, and visa obligations). Get your act together!
Let me close, on a literally sunny note, with a picture of this morning’s gorgeous sunrise and a beautiful rainbow seen as a brief afternoon shower passed by.
PuffinlessTravel 