Flew into Faro two days ago. Bagged a window seat but all we got to see was fog until we reached Spain. The Algarve from the air was unbelievable. I wish I had taken a photo, but I didn’t want to spoil the view of the Daily Mail readers next to me.
The hotel in Faro was a bit rubbish, just a block by the motorway. But it was cheap, and nice to have a night of luxury before the unwashed month begins. Got a taxi to the station yesterday morning, was going to put my stuff in a storage locker and go explore, but they didn’t have any so I just went to a cafe for a couple of hours, then caught the train to Lisbon.
The main train station in Lisbon is Oriente, a gigantic concrete temple to nothing. Impressive enough, though. There was a little difficulty trying to find my hostel, but it all just added to the relief at being able to finally dump my worldly possessions for the next few days.
Went for a brief explore, saw a guy with a tumor growing out of his forehead which was bigger (and hairier) than his head, generally got my bearings around the city and went back to the hostel to drink Portuguese beer with jolly backpackers.
Today I’ve been up to the castle. It’s all very nice and I seemed to be one of about 20 people there. Quite a change from certain other capitals.
Off to this festival now, should be good.