Lisbon visit

Portugal was a second country I visited in mainland Europe. As I was here for a business purpose, I didn’t get chance to visit any other parts of Portugal apart from its main city and capital Lisbon and its surroundings. Lisbon is located on the coast of Atlantic Ocean where river Tagus flows into the ocean. Although it was almost end of November, the weather wasn’t very cold as compared to the UK and apart from 1-2 days of light rain or shower, my 7 days worth of time went good.

My hotel was located in middle of historic old town and commercial district. Hence, it was very convenient for me to go to my work place and sightseeing in the evening and in weekend. From my hotel to the company, the journey was about 15-20 minutes ride by Taxi. And, that was the most weird and shocking part of my daily activity. And, the reason was Taxi drivers. Unlike other rich European countries, Taxi fares were very cheap and I found that most of the Taxi drivers are from poor financial background. And, there was a language issue as well with my conversation with drivers. Hence, each trip to and from company had different experience with drivers’ behaviours, towards me and in general, as well. Later I found out that it was due to shorter trips. As this was very short trip between company and hotel, the average fare I paid was around 5 Euros. And, most of the drivers didn’t like that et al. But by law are required to take these short journeys, they weren’t happy.

  
Lisbon’s old city has a quite a few historic buildings. Most of them were built after 1755 as major earthquake in that year demolished most of the city. New city was built afterwards and due to visionary thoughts from then equivalent to Prime Minister, Marquis of Pombal built the city with larger space between buildings and hence you will find very wide roads and good size pavements, which are very unlikely to see in any other larger city in whole Europe. Portuguese are very proud of the achievements of Vasco de Gama and they have honoured him with creating a fantastic Vasco de Gama sports centre near the coast. In the nutshell, Lisbon is a city with modern architect, nice coastline, cheaper than other European cities and also a great place for shopping.