View of the Bridge. Weather hadn't improved!
Three minutes past midnight, very loud explosions woke us up. Laure genuinely thought that they were bombs, but then we thought they were fireworks. Laure got up to be clear in her own mind, and we could only see the glow of the explosions, which were seemingly directly above our hotel. We went back to bed, still feeling the building vibrating. In the morning we asked the receptionist what it was, and it turned out to be, as we had suspected, the anniversary of their revolution, that occurred in 1974. The woman also said that they now needed a new one!
Anyway, it was again another bank holiday; we suppose hence it was good that we didn't come on this trip to go shopping! Outside it wasn't raining, yet. We got to the riverbank again, because we had said that we wanted to see it in the daylight. On the way we stopped to have breakfast at a café, where we wrote a couple of postcards. We strolled over a bridge to the other side of the river looking for stamps, to what actually felt like a completely different town. From the other side we had seen a brass band marching but they had gone by the time we got there. The road was actually still being built there; it will probably look nice in the future. It started pouring with rain, and we found a stamp machine outside with a post-box. We used it, which was fun under the rain, and then went straight in the first bar we saw. Ian had a glass of Port (nuevo). Laure was used to it as her mum was "hooked" on the stuff, but it was the first time for Ian, who thought it was rich and strong but liked it. We had a bit of a problem to pay but got there in the end (Laure thought she didn't want a note if possible, or maybe wanted more money!).
We walked back to the station, going via some stairs up a great big hill, which after a glass of Port was quite an ordeal! It got sunny going downhill, which was nice. Laure finally found a shop to buy a bottle of water. The guy was nice, because she didn't have enough money but he gave the water anyway. We got a train to Campanha, then to Lisbon. The train filled up very quickly, and there were a lot of people standing, including boy scouts (singing scouts' songs like the Backstreet Boys). We played scrabble a lot, Ian beat Laure 317 to 315 and we both got words that used up all our letters. We are becoming grand masters!!
We arrived in Lisbon station in hot and sunny weather, and tried to find the tourist information. On the way there we saw quite a bit of the city, including the yellow facades of the official buildings on the square by the water front. We also saw the end of the procession for the revolution, with lot of people wearing red carnations on their shirts, and cars with loudspeakers. We eventually found the tourist office, and there we were told that our hotel was quite far from the centre. We wanted to get to the waterfront and then get a bus, but finally walked all the way, for about 30-45 min. Lisbon's back streets are a lot lighter than the ones of Porto, but they still had those nice tiled façades. However, some hotels there were really shabby, we tried one but it was full (fortunately!).
We found our hotel in a small "traversa" off the avenue that the tourist office had indicated. We got a very nice room with a view on the estuary. We wanted to go out for a meal, but round the hotel, not in the centre. Unfortunately, the only thing that appealed was a Chinese restaurant, and we thought that would be silly to eat Chinese in Lisbon! We got a tram to near the centre. It was quite old and bumpy, slower than the bus but cheaper apparently. We tried to get in a seafood restaurant, but it was really busy and they didn't pay any attention to us, which Laure took rather badly. In the end, we ate, guess what? Chinese! We had spring rolls, soup, chow mein chicken noodles, pork in spicy sauce. Laure had half a bottle of white wine, Ian two seven ups and a small bottle of water. All this for 11 pounds, much cheaper than an "English Chinese"! We went back by tram and went to sleep absolutely knackered.