A Fare Thing to Do

That's Linda reading the guide book trying to figure where the hell we were. Oh, we knew we were in Lisbon. We even knew we were in Placa Martim Muniz. We just didn't know where that was. And we really didn't know how to get from there to where we wanted to go.

Mind you, we weren't unhappy being here since both of us thought there had been a chance we would be trying to talk our way out of jail at the police station because we had just fare jumped the trolley that brought us here.

We boarded the trolley after wandering around Castelo de Sao Jorge, the big castle on the waterfront here. We had intended to pay when we got on, but we just didn't know how. Don't worry, Linda said, we'll just watch how other people pay and do that.

So at stop after stop we watched people board, pull out a card and swipe a machine at the front. It started to look like we were the only ones wanting to use coins until a young couple got on pretty far down the road. They counted out their coins and started talking to the conductor.

Linda and I leaned forward trying to catch what was going on, but never did figure out what was being said. We did note, however, that the young couple put their coins back in their pockets and got off the trolley.

Something about only three more stops, Linda said to me. What should we do, I asked. She decided we would go to the conductor at the end of those three stops and confess that we had boarded without paying. Which is what Linda did a few minutes later.

I don't take money, the conductor snarled at her and pretty much told her to get off the trolley. Getting kicked off wasn't so bad given that we had reached the end of the line. The only problem was we had no idea where this end of the line was in relation to where we had wanted to go. That, and a nagging feeling that the transit police were going to come running up to bust us any minute.

We found where we were on the map, but had no idea whether we were heading toward our goal or away. I made a decision. We began walking. Three minutes later, I noticed that the castle where we had been earlier was looming overhead to our right. I made another decision. We turned around.

Only a few minutes later, we were in a great part of Lisbon, walking around plazas and down to the water. Our goal had been to get to the area called Restauradores, figuring it would be the logical place to have lunch.

Turns out Restauradores is named after the men who died fighting in the War of Restoration and has nothing to do with restaurants. It also turns out that, as fate would have it, the area is nonetheless full of restaurants. I suspect the Portugese saw how many hungry English speaking tourists kept showing up here and decided, Hey, let's open some restaurants for the idiots.

Anyhow, once there we had a lovely lunch, did a spot of shopping. Quick report. Lisbon is a beautiful city. The castle is old and only interesting for the views. The trolley conductors won't take your money, but they seem willing to let you stay on to the end of the line.

Pictures on Shutterfly here.