Looking round Lisbon

Our second port of call was Lisbon......the capital of Portugal.......a country we've never visited before.It was also the only place we visited where the ship had to sail up river to dock.....only just squeezing under the suspension bridge.

Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world and is thought to be the oldest in Western Europe.....pre-dating London,Paris and Rome by hundreds of years.
In 1755 a catastrophic earthquake killed 40,000 people and destroyed most of the city......so almost everything that you can see today was built since then.
We had booked tickets for the hop-on-hop-off bus so we could see the city.......getting on and off where we wanted on route.

Jeronimos is probably the largest monastery I've ever seen....I couldn't even manage to take a photo of the whole building.

After getting off the bus in the centre of the city for a wander and a coffee we decided to take the tram [I can't remember ever having been on a tram before] up to the very top of the city........

where there were amazing views over Lisbon

and up there we visited Castelo de Sao Jorge which over the centuries has been used a defensive castle and a Royal Palace.It was partially destroyed by the 1755 earthquake and slowly allowed to fall into disrepair.Today there is excavation going on there.....

and there is a fascinating museum full of items that have been found during the excavations....including these ancient mosaics

From the tram to the castle was a pretty steep climb.......so an ice cream was in order before we made our way back down.......and back to the bus....to take us back to the port....past the old city walls

and the enormous statue of Christ inspired by the one in Rio.

A fascinating city steeped in history

Throughout our voyage I added bits and pieces to the travel journal that I'd taken with me.

and made notes about each day [not shown].