Lisbon: End of the Trip

Returning from a trip to Sintra, Cabo do Roca and Cascais, I was eager to browse at the makeshift bazaar lining one end of Commercio Square, but they were all gone. I supposed we came way too late for me to look at the home-made stuff that they were peddling.

Disappointed, we thought we still needed to get some shopping done because we had quite a list and no shopping done at all yet. We went from store to store browsing and buying a piece here and stuff there. Until we chanced upon this one store that has warm interiors and kitschy atmosphere. We lingered here.

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Later, we chose to have dinner at one of the restaurants near Commercio Square that we haven't tried yet. It was too cold to eat outside, so we chose to eat inside and was pleased to see a full restaurant.

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I have to have sardine. After all in Lisbon, sardine is king. The husband ordered an omelette dish and we shared a squid appetizer. Yummy.

We turned in early that night, our last night, anticipating a busy morning of shopping.

In the morning, we woke up early and enjoyed the free breakfast our modestly priced hotel offered. The spread is comparable to some chain hotels, but the quality is even better.

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From our hotel room, we looked outside to see how the day was going so far. Looked like it's life as usual and people waiting for the bus.

When we left the hotel that morning we had one thing in mind - to SHOP. And thankfully the block behind our hotel is lined with souvenir stores too. We entered one of the larger stores and managed to do most of our shopping there. What a relief.

With most of our shopping done, we suddenly found extra time in our hands. The Rossio Square is one of our favorite spots in the city and that's where we headed. We wanted to sit in the square and just enjoy our last day in Lisbon and think about how much fun this second visit to the city has been. Rossio Square is a great place to people watch and that what we did while we were there. We also fed the birds.

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A while later, the bubble guy showed up and set up shop. The mood in the square changed when his bubbles started floating. Kids chased them, adults tried to pop them and I photographed the whole thing.

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Before all is said and done in our time in the city, we had to get some lunch. We ordered the paella negra, well because it's yummy and it's one of our favorite meals here.

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By 1 pm, we were on a taxi on the way to the airport. We were flying back to Casablanca for the night. We did that because our round-trip flight to SFO is from Casablanca.

The few hours we spent in Casablanca was interesting and annoying at the same time. We booked a riad near the airport with free shuttle to and from the airport. We waited for the shuttle for over an hour and since our phones were useless in another country, we were unable to call the riad. Thankfully, a man who must have watched us wait there forever approached us and asked if he could call someone for us. Twenty minutes later, the van arrived and drove us to the riad, which was a 10 minute drive. It's a beautiful place. One main house where the owners live and in the grounds by the gardens is the one-story building that housed the rental accommodations. The man who is a Moroccan welcomed us. He is very friendly and chatty. A cup of mint tea appeared promptly as we settled in his comfortable living room. The cats went about the room and I was happy. But the man did not know how to check us in, he said we have to wait for his wife to do that. In the meantime, we couldn't go to our room just yet. We sat in the living room chatting with the man. The wife came, a lovely French woman and our check in was completed. Online it was said that dinner with the family was included. I was very hungry having only eaten lunch (I am always hungry), but there was no sign that dinner was coming any time soon. I insisted we go to our room and get settled, because we have an early flight out.

So no dinner, and the bed and beddings were dusty. Everything was dusty. For dinner we had to contend with whatever food we had left in our bags, cookies and chips.

I woke up so early at dawn, having only slept no more than 4 hours and no one is about to take us to the airport. This riad is not in the main road. It is inside a small lane, more like a private road and no neighbors within sight. We called out many times. The main house was left unlocked and we kept calling out in the living room. Eventually, the husband went upstairs and called out to the owner for a ride. The driver appeared within minutes and drove us to the airport. However, he dropped us off in the middle of the parking lot and he spoke no English so we could not explain to him that this was not the spot to drop us off.

We had to drag our luggage in uneven cobblestones and my annoyance about the whole stay in the riad persisted. If you ask me, I will not go back and stay with them even though they were both very charming and nice. It's just a little aggravating that a bad experience will be had at the end of this wonderful trip.

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Comments

  1. Beautiful photos, and what wonderful fun with the bubble guy! However, I must admit that the most amazing thing, to me, was that gorgeous chandelier in what appears to be a biscuit shop. North America just doesn't have the same je-ne-sais-quoi as Europe!
    Kay
    An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel

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  2. Notwithstanding the downer at the very end, it seems you had a wonderful trip; and you have the pictures to prove it. Speaking of which, I love the city-scape from your hotel window; and the apparently'undulating' street in Rossio Square is quite wild.

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  3. OMG how disappointing! After all the lovely sceneries, landscapes, etc, etc., it was just capped with a bad one. I can relate fully with you, as my head aches because of disgust whenever i am hungry! Anyway, Portugal is a dream country for me, but your experience is truly disgusting.

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  4. Wonderful scenes from your trip.

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  5. Amazing photos. Thanks for sharing :)

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  6. Lovely pictures from Lisboa!

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  7. That paella calls to me! What a memorable trip you've had. I'm glad you got a little shopping in. We rarely shop on our trips, but I would linger in that store too.

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  8. That banner photo is no ordinary photog!!! Looks like a fun trip...

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  9. Lisbon looks beautiful, you captured it well. It's too bad that your trip ended on a not so pleasant experience. Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed it very much.

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  10. That is a beautiful square. It sounds like such a fun trip!

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  11. Thanks for the tour and sharing your experiences. I smiled at the bubble man. Saw something similar while on vacation at Fisherman's Wharf and my granddaughter chased bubbles and loved it! Simple pleasures I guess.

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  12. sorry about the bazzares but what a lot of bubbles :) Cool!

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