Lisbon Trip 2025 - PART 1
Riding Lisbon's narrow, steep streets on the original yellow 1930s tram, visiting the Castela St Jorge and picturesque city squares
The Journey to Lisbon
As something of an appetiser to the main course of my 40th birthday celebrations, I decided March would be a good time for a short city break to Lisbon. Christmas and New Year now a distant memory, winter still clinging on despite the meteorological changing of seasons, and some optimism of warmer weather on the horizon.
That was the theory. In the event, it turned out that the rain in Spain stayed mainly in Portugal, for the majority of this trip. But it wouldn’t dampen my spirits.
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Anyway, back to Barnham Station early on Sunday morning, the very definition of a ghost town. Still, it meant I could avoid the rush hour crowds of other days into London, once the on-screen announcements had eventually defined they were indeed going to Gatwick Airport after all - hurrah!
Smoothly onto the North Terminal shuttle and through security, and as has become tradition, a Full English breakfast to send me off from the UK! It’s the moment the holiday mentality and escapism from the mundanity of daily life can begin!
The flight ran exactly to time, however the same couldn’t be said for the shared shuttle, which seem to be notoriously unpredictable from country to country. Having recently booked with the same app for Croatia, which went ridiculously smoothly, as I ended up being the only passenger in a supposed ‘shared shuttle’, I gave it another go. But this time I ended up waiting for over an hour for everyone to turn up. Luckily, it was chucking it down, and it brought me closer to the 3pm check-in time anyway.
After a bit of a draining day (travel days can just be like this sometimes, it’s the price of adventure), and uninspiring weather outside, I found a very local Pizzeria a 2 minute walk from the hotel, brilliant service and excellent food of Lasagne followed by mouthwatering cheesecake - a great end to the first day!
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