24th Aug to 1st Sept, Lisbon

We have had a wonderful last sunny week of our trip in Lisbon, cleaning and putting Cara Mara to bed for the winter and enjoying the sights of this lovely city.

Cara Mara is now out of the water in across the river in the care of Rafael the owner of the Tagus Yacht Centre, who has a long list of jobs to do before spring.

Pat flew home on the 26^th and Dave and Wendy have had two nights in "The House", a great little boutique hotel, which is in the older part of the city, a complete contrast to the marina, which was in a very modern area developed for Expo 98. Lisbon is a very old city, settled before the Romans, with influences of the Moors; it’s fascinating to wander through areas of really good modern architecture and contrast with narrow Moorish streets. Of course the whole city is dominated by the river and we are looking forward to seeing more, before we set of down it, when we come back in the spring.

Lisbon has a great public transport system, we have used buses, trains, metro, water taxi's and a modern tram but the most fun are these old tram cars which make their way up impossibly steep hills

The castle, the river and one of the many steep hills

Lisbon has many beautiful churches, the Basilica Estrela is very close to our hotel 

Lisbon commissions street art on prominent redundant buildings, much more fun than graffiti

The monument to Portugal's golden age of world exploration, one part of the public riverfront which makes Lisbon such a lovely city 

The Praca do Comercio, one of the largest public squares in Europe is very reminiscent of Venice

This is the last post of the blog of our 2197 mile trip from Preston; many thanks to Michael, Stuart, Paul, Biddy, Darren, Mary, Cleo , Pat and of course our own Chris, who have helped  us on our way  and been such good company.