Lisboa. Cascaias.
Wednesday, 12. November 2008, 00:04:50
Lisboa is a big city with lots of narrow streets, great views, as well as big shops, train stations, metro, trams and buses. We've arrived at the Oriente train station at night, and (oh my!) there actually were people.
The station is conveniently connected with a metro, where a special english-speaking employee reached us and kindly helped us to get a tickets when we were about to give up handling the ticket machine.
Since we had no hotel booking left we've just tried to get to a hotel in which we initially wanted to stay (before our plans suddenly changed), but it has no free rooms. Though the guy at reception
redirected us to a nearby "residencias" - the place where for 40 euro per night you would get a private room with bed and shower + breakfast.
There are many residencias in the city, so you can easily find the one you like just by walking in the city center. At our place, english-speaking receptionist warmly welcomed us, gave a map and a suggestions of what to do in the city. 
Though he soon suddenly dissapeared and for the first time I had to deal with portuguese-only speaking guy at reception. He was pretty smart though to open a translate.google.com and ask me to type my question about blanket in english 
On the other day he helped us to get a car for rent (with my driver's license forgotten at home). 
So the whole day we were browsing Lisboa, riding on a tram, then got a car and drove to Cascaias, had a nice dinner there, visited great lonely beaches on the west, arrived at Sintra at night and then headed back to Lisboa. There I was desperately searching for an open pharmacy and even learned a word "estomago" 
The interesting thing is that even if pharmacy is not working, still it's green cross is illuminated, which is conusing. Finally, I've found one really opened pharmacy and asked the guy there. In portuguese. And he even understood me 
Though shortly after I was unable to understand him, we switched to English 
What I specifically liked about portuguese people is their politeness (like if you buy only a bottle of water in supermarket, people will let you first in the cash desk line) and readiness to help. Of course in a rhythm like that it's impossible to fully enjoy the taste of the country and 5 days was clearly not enough.
WIDGETIZE
kocmok # 17. February 2009, 05:58
I took a trip to Lisboa during Christmas time, check out galleries XXIII-XXV at http://my.opera.com/kocmok/albums/
Max # 17. February 2009, 23:52
kocmok # 18. February 2009, 05:55
I liked the somehow decadent atmosphere & surrondings which make Lisboa quite a unique place to visit.
Anonymous # 16. June 2009, 17:24
you should slow down your paces of travel, explore around in lisboa for 2-3 three week at least, Porto 2 weeks, Azores island another 3-4 weeks.
experience the cultural connection between russian and portuguese,,it's said that some russian could feel their cultural roots when staying in portugal, not only on linguiastics
....
Do Come back to portugal By FLYING with T.O.P. airlines from moscow directly. good services, new airbus aircraft.
Max # 16. June 2009, 18:12
As for cultural connections - indeed, there is something. From a very short amount time that I had a chance to spend there, I've noticed, that the way people think and behave in many aspects is similar to some russians (especially when it comes to politeness, personal distance, the pace and the process of developing relationship between strangers). This can really establish some ground for discovery of one's roots. Though, from history, Iberia was so far away from Russia. During 17-19 centuries, most of russian upper class was mostly obsessed about France. Now, as far as I heard though, portuguese real-estate is popular among russians. I really wish there was much more meaningful cultural interaction, because Portugal is interesting and special, yet somehow relatively not very well explored here.
Are you from Portugal by the way? You seem to love this country much!
Anonymous # 18. June 2009, 09:12
Sorry for the wrong spelling, it's TAP Air Portugal(Transportes Aéreos Portugueses), TAP's direct flight to moscow started from 9th june,5 flights a week.there's promotion fares.
Portugal is still one of cheapest place in europe to live leisurely, if you're on very very tight budget, try to be a House-sitter for a likely minded hoilday house/home owner, or try couchsurfing portugal by registering with "couchsurfing.org"
Oh you've got interesting nickname"burma", so were you born in burma/now myanmar?if so , do visit myanmar some day...
Max # 20. June 2009, 16:31
Thanks