Por2gal

This is the travelblog of a 12 day journey by bike in lisbon and portugal, sharing my experiences here...

broken screen.

on the way to FRA airport I wanted to read some document on the kindle and realized the screen broke. damn. the device was stored safely in a Leather store. so now here I am at the internet cafe. lisboa in the dark was fun but getting to my host seemed to take ages. --eric — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.154.41.233 (talk) 16:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Top Ten things to do in Lisboa:

• Wine tasting at "gn" the national winery. every thursday from 20:00 there is free public wine tastings.

Just happened to pass by as it was already going and stepped into a tasting with wonderful wines called by sounding names like procura, adventura, and more...

• Hang out on one of the numerous viewpoints Gracias, buenavista etc.. and have a beer while watching the sunset

• Get a private tram ride at the Carris_Museum It´s included in the 4€ museum ticket and brings you from one exhibiton space to the next.

• Get some fresh fruit at Ribeira Market Hall and have a Pastel & Coffee (Espresso) while watching the market..

• hava a ginhja cherry liquer - served almost everywhere.

FRiday

Started my first real cycling day with the ferry across the tejo river. > cabo espichal > Setubal - almost 100km today. Met people who were collecting reed (schilf) to tatch a house of the quinta 7 nomes permaculture project. hope to go there next week.

Saturday ... Tuesday

cycling around the south: troia > Lago St.Andre > Villa Nova de Milfontes > Tamera > Santiago > Melides > Troia lost my swiss knife on the way to the south. weather became rainy on the way back..

Wednesday 15.1.

rainy day, and luckily I had internet so I could organise some stuff.

NIGHTMARE in suburbia. here is a few reasons, while the suburbia west of lisbon is a big urban planning fail:

• Housing areas with One-Way street systems where there is no obvious reason to have one way streets
• hierarchical road system Areas with only one way out and if you´re not from there you won`t find the way out.
• suburban areas that stretch over a few kilometers and even if you already are in a part of town or area called oeiras, you will see signs pointing into the direction oeiras in different positions pointing into almost random directions
• no landmarks
• no linearity in which you can orient yourself.
• if google map has roads numbered N249-3 and N249-4 it doesnt mean there will be signs on the road with this number

historically grown european cities are to pretty failsafe in orientation. e.g. if you miss a turn you can take the next road and they have subcenters or squares with landmarks and names that appear in the physical world as well as in the maps and traffic signs.

I made it all the way to sintra using a motorway kind of road (IC19) and was almost stopped by some (fake?) policemen. I didnt believe them, when they were pointing police ID cards at me since there appearence was more that of drug dealers (in lisbon the other day when I was proposed to buy some shit). So I didnt stop and they went on.

When I reached sintra it was too late for any visiting .. it was already getting dark. Since I didnt want to go back on this IC motorway where cars go 100 km/h I took the train as far as possible.

what a shitty day, lets see what tomorrow brings. but hey, just had a nice dinner with my hosts francisca & Joao and made some crepe and everything is fine again, except the weather is still rainy.

Thursday 16.1.

cycled out to cascais leaving suburbia behind, and also the bad weather, only 2 short rainshowers today. cascais is very touristy, all european languages can be heart and I talked to swiss, american and danish people in just 2 hours. there is a nice little beach right next to the railway station. Got some bread and olives pao&azeitone and took the train back to alges. LX Factory is worth a visit, its a recently developing creative center withcoworking spaces, boutiques, cafes. great to hang out!