Lisbon, Portugal (Part 1) - Apr 05, 2013

Our last real port of call, Southampton and Rotterdam will really only be a drop off port and a departure port for us, respectively. Today we were blessed with sunny skies and Vancouver type spring temperatures (around 15 degrees Celsius). So we took full advantage of this beautiful day. After docking at a very central cruise terminal just outside the Alfama district, which was awesome as I only know the terminal beside the April 25th bridge, we wandered into city with Jeff and Joy that was only minutes away. Jeff had a great walking tour printout of the Alfama district, so after a couple of traditional tram rides around town (centrally the #25 tram takes you through some of the old districts , then a few stops before the end of it’s run, transfer to the #28 which covers the rest of the city) we jumped off at the stop that takes you to the St. George Castle. Our pictures today cover all the areas we visited both on the tram and during the walk. Yes, we did stop at a local bakery and had a few of the fantastic Pastel de Nata’s - yum. The real beauty of where we were docked for the time of our stay here (noon to 11:00pm), was that the Alfama district, home to Fado (Fado is a distinctly Portuguese, it is sang in the local bars and restaurants here and is derived from the sailing days of long ago when sailors would go out for months at a time and the families at home would long for them - many would not return due to sailing mishaps). This port time gave us the opportunity to have a local meal and listen to some Fado - wonderful and emotional. After talking to a Portuguese crew member at the front desk, Jeff got the name of a local restaurant (Mesa De Frades), the only problem was that this restaurant was too authentic - dinner was at 9:00 with the Fado starting at 11:00 pm (to 5 or 6 in the morning), our all aboard was 10:30. Now Georgio, a waiter there understood our predicament and took us under his wing. After a short walk up a few narrow streets he introduced us to Fransica who runs a very local restaurant “As Pretas”. He left us to our amazing meal (with wine and drinks came to $20.00 Euros P/P) and showed back up again at 9:00pm to take us further into the maze of tiny streets to a Fabo bar, “Fora de Moda”. The Fado at this bar really gets going later but they played a half hour set just for us - incredible and all for the cost of a round of drinks. At 10:00 Georgio then walked us back down to the cruise ships, hugs and handshakes later with promises to be back back to visit, we were back on the ship by 10:20 pm - apparently the last guests aboard. A great last port of call here in Lisbon... Two sea days then we say goodbye to most of the guests in Southampton.