August 7th - Back to Lisbon

The dirt road hugged this shoreline and had an occasional overlook

The stone foundations are part of an archeological dig.  They are remnants of a Moorish seasonal fishing village from 1,000 years ago.

The Vasco de Gamma bridge crossing the Tejo River into Lisbon

Leading up to Praco do Commmercio, site of the outdoor concert

Waiting on the riverbank for the concert

The musicians were going to be housed in these colorful perches

Unfortunately, today was our last day in Salema in the Algarve. It was a great week of swimming, surfing, boating, and eating. We packed up and got out the door early, probably the quickest we’ve left yet! We started to make our way back to the beach where we had been surfing and we took a gravel road along the coast for a few miles. It was very scenic, you felt like you were on the end of the world, because the cliffs just dropped straight down into the water right at the edge of the road.

From that road, we got onto a smaller highway, which we took all of the way to our lunch spot. After lunch, we headed back onto our highway, and we began to notice trees that were missing their bark at the bottom, then we began seeing the bark in big piles on trucks and on the side of the road. After brainstorming ideas as to what the reason was behind this, my mom realized that they must be cork trees, and then looked in her guide book and saw that the region is known for its cork trees that they use to make all sorts of things.

The drive dragged on for what seemed like forever, but only 4.5 hours had passed when we got back into Lisbon. We got to take one of the bridges across their big river, and we were on it for a good 7 minutes or so. The bridge dumped us off right by our hotel, which is near the airport. We checked in and my dad returned our rental car.

Later in the night, we hopped on the subway, and took it to Bairro Alto, near the center of Lisbon. After searching around for a little bit, we came across a nice restaurant, right at opening time. We were the only ones in the restaurant, and were just leaving when it started getting filled, the story of our dinner habits this past month. The Spanish and Portuguese like to eat their dinner starting at about 9:30 until as late as 11:00! Later, we walked down to the central plaza of downtown because we heard that there was a concert going on there, but when we got there, we found out that we would have to wait 45 minutes for it to start, and it was late. We left, reluctantly, because it looked cool. They had a fireworks show planned, and the band sounded good. I considered that concert Lisbon’s version of Lollapalooza, since we’ll be missing it! Tomorrow comes Sintra and all of its castles!

Ryan