Lisbon

I had a lovely rest time in Lisbon (Lisboa).  The weather has been quite warm, today one could even say it was hot, and the next few promise more of the same.
A view of the castle atop the hill, above the colourful houses.

I have spent my time in Lisbon exploring what is a bright, energetic, and colourful city.  Exploring, other than the water frontage, means ascending, or descending, steep, and often narrow, streets.  Some are so steep that access is via steps.
A Narrow street, complete with queues 
Basilica da Estrela, Lisbon
inside Lisbon Cathedral

Rather than miss out on seeing some of the sights that were too far away to walk to I bought a 24 hour ticket on the yellow "hop on, hop off" bus.  I find that this is a good way to not only see the sights, but also to get a lot of the history.
The yellow bus tour

Several times I alighted from the bus with the thought of "maybe I will visit", but each time I just looked at the queues and visited the Cafe instead!  I have been to Rome, London, and Paris, but I have never been in such a  busy place.  There were tourists everywhere - sadly not always doing the right thing.  It seemed to not occur to them that road rules applied to them too.  They walked in the middle of the road, crossed on the red light, ambled across after it had changed and so on.  Even worse, was following one or two, and without them even looking or being aware of those around them, they would change direction, nearly creating a pedestrian accident! 
The queues (above) to the castle, and (below) to the Jerónimos Monastery
This wasn't helped by the three cruise boats in town.  This morning as I left Lisbon I counted about 25 coaches, and about 10 sightseeing  tourist buses waiting to ferry passengers.  Yesterday I had arranged to meet José Luis.  He arrived very late, having taken an hour to negotiate what normally took 20 minutes.  I have great sympathy with those authorities who are proposing charges to control the tourist numbers in some of the high tourist destinations.
coffee with José Luis

When I came to Spain last Christmas, I came with the purpose of seeing the Nativity Scenes.  Even though it is not Christmas,  imagine my delight when I discovered 2 more Nativity Scenes in two different churches in Lisbon - both on permanent display.
The Nativity Scene in the Basilca
A small section of it
This Nativity Scene is in the Cathedral, and a close up, through the glass.

I will just close with a couple more photos of Lisbon.  I had a lovely sunny day when I left this morning as you can see.

it seems Australia and New Zealand don't hold the rights to 25th April.   This bridge is known as the 25th April Bridge!

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