Sintra

 I traveled by train to Sintra on the Monday. There were huge crowds partly because museums in Lisbon are closed on mondays. When you get to Sintra you have to take an official public bus transport. There are many separate places to visit in Sintra. I chose just to go to the Pena Palace and gardens.

Piña Palace. This magical hilltop palace sits high above Sintra above the Moorish Castle ruins. In the 19th century, Portugal had a very romantic prince, German born prince Ferdinand. A contemporary of cousin of Bavaria’s “mad” King Ludwick , he was also a cousin of England’s Prince Albert (Queen Victoria‘s husband). Flamboyant Ferdinand hired a German architect to build a fantasy castle, mixing elements of German and Portuguese style. He ended up with a crazy Neo fortified castle of Gothic Towers, Renaissance domes, Moorish minarets, Manueline carvings, Disneyland playfulness, and an azulejo (tile) toilet for his wife. 

My wallet pickpocketed

 The third day I was here I planned to go to Cascais. I was carrying my small wallet with the three credit cards, my drivers license and care card and a small amount of cash in a secure bag. I pulled the wallet out in order to take out a prepaid card which is used to go on the Metro and proceeded until I got down to the Metro, then I suddenly realize that my wallet had gone. The centre of Lisbon is very well known for pickpockets.  Of course it completely disrupted the day. I got help from a policeman to take a Uber to the tourist police station. I spent an hour giving a report to extremely dimwitted police officer. Within half an hour, funds had been withdrawn from two credit cards and my Wise account. At the police station there was no Wi-Fi so I couldn’t do anything about it but as soon as I got Wi-Fi, I froze all the accounts and then I proceeded to contact the Royal Bank and cancel my credit cards and report some unauthorized spending on them and new credit cards will be delivered home and will be there before I arrive home. I also froze the Wise account. But then I had a problem because I had a very small amount of cash to last for the next three days and also I needed cash to pay for the tube from Heathrow to St Pancras. Anyhow, the following day, I unfroze the Wise card for a short time was able to withdraw extra cash and so my anxiety was solved. I’m so lucky that this happened on a spare day when I had time to deal with it. If it had happened, for example of that was on the way to the airport it would’ve been extra difficult to deal with it. The biggest hastle now will be getting a new drivers license and care card when I get home. I’m sure this has happened to other people so I thought I’d report it here. The police report may help with any insurance claim. I think that the banks may cover the claims on the credit cards as I was able to give them details of the police report. You can’t be too careful in storing your valuables. Luckily my passport was still in my pack in my room so that was not an issue.

An evening walk

 One of the joys of staying close to downtown in a city is that you can easily walk around the middle of the city at all times a day. An evening stroll just before dinner is a great time to observe the population, the tourists etc. In downtown Lisbon there are a vast number of restaurants, most of them with their premises permanently outside on the wide pavements. Many different menus claim to be Portuguese but others, Indian or mixture of Indian and Portuguese. There is also fine dining. It is interesting to see the throngs of different people that are wandering around in the centre of Lisbon at about 7 o’clock at night.

 I’ve been eating fairly simply. For dessert one evening I had a Portuguese special cream tart. The people who live in Lisbon and work downtown seem to be a mixture of black Africans and people with Indian appearance but as well there are brown people from Brazil, who are have different facial forms. 

The Reform Club

 I spent three nights at the Reform club. This was the second time I had stayed there. It is one of the London clubs that is reciprocal with the Union Club of British Columbia situated on Pall Mall.  A huge benefit is you can walk everywhere in central London. The ambiance is great. The service is great. The small single room adequate. My friend Tom, was at Cambridge at the same time as me. He was at Caius College. We were both at the London hospital together. He came down from Cambridge where he lives and we had a great lunch together. Tom at one time managed the UKs national cancer registry. We’ve always had a lot of common interest in epidemiology. 

Lisbon

 I took the tube to Heathrow ( one hour). There was a 2 1/2 of flight delay due to thick fog at Heathrow Airport. Luckily, I was flying on points and business class so I was able to get breakfast in the lounge there. On day one I decided to have a relatively light day because I was still suffering from a bug which I had picked up on the Queen Mary 2 and also, it was a fairly tiring travel day the day before. I greatly enjoy the public transit in European cities. In Lisbon there is a Metro system, a trolly system a bus system and a ferry system All to be explored as part of the travelling pleasure. The centre of Lisbon is made up of many squares and it’s very very easy to get lost but thanks to Google maps or when that doesn’t work the Apple maps  it’s easy to navigate around as long as you remember the address of where you’re staying. I’m staying at a hostel which is very reasonably priced about $100 Canadian a night.  It has a very adequate bedroom. It is clean, there’s an adjacent kitchen and bathroom, etc. Mostly young people staying here, but it’s it’s fun to interact with some of them. As a single traveller you have occasional very enjoyable interactions with people. One evening I talked for about half an hour to a 30-year-old German woman who was a management consultant. I was impressed with her English, but also how we were able to compare organizational behaviour from my days as a administrator to today’s organizational culture, and in particular in how it works in Germany, compared with other countries. Another evening, I met a stockbroker from Florida who is pro Trump and had an MBA from Harvard. He was very bullheaded, but I was able to interject some very critical issues about the United States compared with other countries. It was a very dynamic and enjoyable interaction which lasted about 15 minutes.

The Real Thing

 I went to a matinee performance of the Tom Stoppart play The Real Thing. There was a group of teenage girls there who probably must’ve been doing the play for school studies because they were wearing school uniforms. There is a lot of risky dialogue in this play about two couples who are to put it mildly polyamorous. Anyhow, whenever there was a risky bit that came up there was huge laughs from this group of teenagers. It was at the National Theatre from which we sometimes are able to watch plays at the local at our cinemas.

St Mary le Strand concert

 On the second full day in London I attended a superb solo piano concert titled “ Bach by candlelight” at the Church of St Mary Le Strand - about a 20 minute walk along the Stand from the Reform Club. Christina Lawrie played almost the whole concert off book. It always amazes me how talented musicians can have such complex music in their memories.