Oct 14
Day 34 – last full day
Another quiet night in the bunk room. Tonight I had an upper bunk companion, but she did make a sound. I only knew it was a woman by the shoes at the bottom of the ladder.
After breakfast, I packed up and secured my stuff in a locker on the hostel lobby. I have over for hours to kill before reservations at the Lisbon Aquarium, which is on the metro line to the airport and my hotel for the night.
It’s a beautiful day, so I just started walking. I soon found myself at the waterfront watching the ferries cross between Lisbon and the cities on the other side of the Sea of Straw.
Sitting there, I remembered that I had yet to successfully locate a Geocache on this adventure. I had tried in Porto and Finistere, but both efforts were stymied by long descriptions in the local language that I was unable to copy & paste into Google Translate. With some time on my hands, I thought I’d give it another go.
To my delight, there was one less than 100 meters from me with a description in English. After a quick success, I thought I’d try another. The second was even easier and provided me with some history about one of the few buildings to survive the 1755 Quake. This one dating to 1585.
On my way to a third cache, I stopped at the Pastelaria where I had my dessert last night. Time for an almond croissant and an espresso.
After four easy finds I decided to try and hop on another trolley. My map showed an intersecting line seven blocks north, so I headed in that direction. Only to discover that the distance included a significant elevation change. The path to the upper elevation was a finicular track. The finiculars are currently not running as they all undergo safety inspections following the deadly accident on September 3 that killed 16 people.
I reached the top and waited at the nearby tram stop, but when it arrived, it was packed tighter than a can of Portuguese sardines. Checking my watch, it was late enough that I decided to walk back to my hostel, claim my bag and grab a Metro to the Aquarium, where I had tickets for a 2pm entry.
The Aquarium was amazing. It had a giant central tank and the outer perimeter was divided into four sections each representing a different oceanic area. The walkway around was on two levels, so you could see shoreline inhabitants on the upper level (puffins, penguins, sea otters, etc) and sea life on the lower level. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
I spent nearly three hours at the Aquarium and then took the Metro three more stops to the airport. My room for the night was less than a kilometer walk away.
