These last few days were pretty relaxed. Day 33 we went to Lidl for milk and yogurt and spent an hour walking to and from Daniel’s bike shop, where we got a smaller bike box. We went back many times to the coffee/pastry place right by our hotel – it was super authentic and filled with locals, had a huge selection of pastries, and was cheap. We bought duct tape and zip ties from a hardware store (~11 EUR) and a sharpee and paper to make the “Fragile” signs. We went on a free walking tour of Lisbon that was super interesting. We learned about the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, one of the largest every experienced in Europe, along with the destruction and fires that resulted. We learned about the long-ago history – the Visigoths who had originally settled the Iberian peninsula, the overtaking by the Moors, and how Spain managed to unite many of the Iberian countries, but not Portugal. We learned about the dictator, Salazar, who ruled from 1932 to 1968 and how life under his rule is still with society today. I tried Ginja from an old street lady, a cherry liquor served in a chocolate cup. Finally, since Viki was craving Nepalese food (and our hotel seems to be in a Nepalese/Indian district, we had Nepalese for dinner.
Day 34 we spent a few hours in the morning packing bikes. The smaller box was nearly too small, even for Viki’s bike! We had to rotate her fork 90 degrees and remove the disc brake assembly. We went to decathlon to buy comfortable clothes (we got matching kids shorts for 4 EUR each and adult tshirts for 5 EUR each). We then spent the rest of the day walking through the city, eating, and drinking. Along our walk to Timeout market we tried bacalau balls (1 EUR, basically breaded and deep fried fish meat – moist and very tasty) and an incredible chocolate cake at Landeau Chocolate (4 EUR). At Timeout Market we tried Leitão (pork belly with crispy skin and a yam puree, 17 EUR) at the Henrique Sá Pessoa stall (the stall corresponding to a 2 michelin star restaurant). We also tried a caldo verde from another stall (a typical portugese green soup, 3 EUR). Going into evening we went to old town to try gambas al ajillo (prawns in garlic sauce, which were delicious, especially soaking up the sauce with bread after, 12 EUR). Finally we went to a Russian brewery, Sputnik, and I tried a barrel aged beer.
Day 35 was our flight home. We woke up at 7am, left around 8am. The metro guard almost wouldn’t let us in the station with the bike boxes. I pleaded, he called his supervisor, and relented, so we were allowed on the metro. It was very slow moving with the bike boxes (we’d carry my box 100m, keep it in sightline, walk back to Viki’s and repeat). There was one transfer, but lots of walking between the train platforms. Our bikes were 22kg and 23kg (Lufthansa’s max is 23kg), which included most of our bags as well, so just had small carry on bags. We had a flight to Barcelona at 2-5pm. Then the next day to Munich ~7am-9am. Then the flight back to Vancouver at 2pm. Fortunately we had lounge access in all of these places and were thoroughly fed (had to transfer terminals in Munich just to get to a lounge though). I unfortunately lost my black ditty bag containing my garmin bike computer (suspecting left at seat on TAP flight) and spent hours, unsuccessfully, at Barcelona airport trying to locate it.
