Lisboa

We took the "fast train" from Albufeira to Lisboa yesterday - left at 7:19 am and arrived at about 10 am to a sunny but surprisingly cold morning. The temperature on arrival was 8 degrees C! Fortunately, it warmed considerably later. We had lunch comfortably at an outdoor cafeteria.

The train ride was excellent - smooth, comfortable and it was quite fast reaching 250 to 260 Km/hour at times. (For non metric folks that's around 160 miles/hour)

After we got settled in our room and had a bit of lunch, Ruth and I walked up to the 1100 year old castle/fortress on one of Lisboa's seven hills (more about Lisboa itself in the next post). As you can see from some of the photos, it is a fair climb from the level of our hotel to the top of the fort.

This fort was built by the Moors in the 11th century when they "ruled" much of the Iberian peninsula, including most of Portugal. The Christians captured the fort sometime in the 12th century during the period when the Moors were gradually being driven out of this region after living here for over 400 years.

As usual, the Moors were very creative in their buildings (see 2009 postings on the Alhambra in Granada and the Mosque in Cordoba). In addition to the obvious strategy of building the fort on a hill, they incorporated a number of strategies to make it difficult for intruders to get in - walls within walls, false entry ways, blind alleys, etc.

After the castle we made our way down, had a beer and snacks at an outdoor cafe and found the area called the Alfama, the old Jewish quarter of the city, which is where we will visit today.

A photo looking down on some steps we had just climbed (there were many of these as well as uphill grades), one of the main entry and some views of Lisboa from the castle. More to come.