Let’s talk about accommodation, shall we? The first couple of nights we stayed in a cheap and well located hotel.
The good
The rooms were nicely atmospheric, though you wouldn’t have thought so based on the hotel’s public spaces. They were a bit mid-twentieth century mental asylum. Which I kind of dug. Anyway. Our three person room was quite large with a bathroom that was surprisingly roomy, well lit, and modern. The room had French doors opening up to a narrow balcony overlooking the street. With an adventurous 4yo it made me a little nervous so definitely keep an eye on little ones. And, of course, there was a playground nearby.
The bad
Old pipes meant there was a more than occasional stench from the bathroom drains. It was strong enough to wake me up and motivate me to get out of bed, open the window, and firmly close the bathroom door.
Back in the 20tweens we spent a summer in Argentina. Well, it was our summer, their winter. Due to a confluence of events* we started searching out apartments on our travels. We would choose apartment style accommodation pretty regularly over the next few years but never through AirBnB. Lisbon was our first AirBnB experience.
The good
Fantastic location. Near public transport, restaurants, cafes, parks, the river, pretty much everything. The place was spotless. The cleaner really did an exceptional job. Well outfitted with everything we needed for our one month stay. The host met us the first day and, for the most part, reacted quickly when problems arose.
The bad
The ground floor space opened right onto the sidewalk. A street so narrow that to drive down cars had to put one wheel on the sidewalk meaning you had to be extra careful when stepping outside. The dryer part of the washer dryer was broken. The apartment above was under an extensive renovation. There were times when the whole place shook. A couple of days in I developed a burning rash around my ankles and still don’t know what the dealio was.
Once again we had to deal with a more than occasional stench from the bathroom drains. At 3am on Saturday night (Sunday morning?) some random dude popped our locked door open and poked his head in for a look see. Finally, a week in, the cleaning service infested us with bed bugs. Dozens and dozens of bites between the two of us. Fortunately, either LB was miraculously not bitten or she seems to be one of the fortunate few that does not react to bed bug bites.
On top of this the weather in Lisbon was much (much, much, MUCH) better than what we left behind in Scotland. But it did prove to be rainier and cooler than their usual norm. On average for October Lisbon gets eight days of rain and temperatures up to the 70sF/high teen low 20sC. We got roughly double the amount of rain and I was in my hoodie most days.
Yet we still loved Lisbon. There was the impromptu visit by our friend, D-. Great beaches, beautiful city, amazing food. Incredibly friendly and polite people. It was rare that an elderly or disabled person, a child, or a pregnant woman failed to find a seat on the extensive and affordable (though always crowded) public transport. Not that Lisbon is problem free. But none of the obstacles we encountered made us fall out of love with the city.
The good news is that most rainy days the rain was light or confined itself to a certain part of the day. But it drenched the plaground equipment and left the parks soggy. Which meant finding something to do with LB inside. There are malls in the outer city with play areas. There are also the aquarium and science museums.
One weekday, after a couple of days of rain, we grabbed an Uber to the aquarium. Uber in Lisbon is fantastic. The law demands that children be in child seats so drivers typically carry a booster. This does make it difficult for those with infants or more than one very young child to use the service.
We arrived at the aquarium to discover that the line was outrageous. Easily a hundred people and perhaps double that. Seeing the queue I decided to try to buy tickets online. On the site you buy them by time slot but I think other sources may have all day tickets. Regardless, they were sold out for the day
Neither one of us expected the aquarium and science museum to be so packed on a random school day in October. Why weren’t these kids in class?!? As it turns out other parts of Europe were on their week long half term vacation and Lisbon is an increasingly popular spot.
In retrospect I am quite happy that we didn’t buy time slotted tickets in advance because the museums were packed to capacity. The screaming chaos would have made all three of us miserable. Especially as tickets for adults are 19€! We ended up taking the cable car which was inexpensive and a nice experience for LB. But, if you do intend to go to the aquarium and/or science museum definitely buy your tickets well in advance and make them flexible.
*Argentina was way more expensive than our research had led us to believe. Far worse, the food we encountered was terrible. This came as a shock. The Argentinan restaurants we’d been to outside of Argentina were invariably delicious and their neighbor, Brazil, had some of the best food we’ve come across. To say our expectations were high is putting it mildly. We did encounter a few excellent places but they were mostly at the higher end. In contrast, one of the best restaurants we ate at in Brazil was off of a gas station at a highway rest stop.
Yes, they are entirely different countries with different geographies and demographics. We weren’t expecting Brazilian food. Just a Brazilian level of quality. At least a decent pizza culture in a place where so many Italians immigrated it affected the way the local language is spoken. And the least all those former Nazis could have done is introduce proper German sausage. We literally started choosing apartments with kitchens just so I could cook.