Today’s Daily Programme can be found here…
You could tell we were no longer in the Mediterranean when I woke at 3am, the ship had started to move about quite a bit, this was no longer a millpond we were on. I went back to sleep and when I woke I found we had already arrived in Lisbon and were alongside the cruise terminal.
The day wasn’t looking too promising with regard to the weather, it was already very cloudy and I could feel spits of rain on the balcony. We hadn’t any excursions planned for the day, rather, we were going to take a stroll into Lisbon for lunch as Jane fancied a Cataplana, a traditional Portuguese fish or shellfish stew served in a copper casserole dish. I also had some chores that I needed to do, principly I need a haircut, as it’s getting a bit unruly.
By the time we’d finished breakfast the weather had really closed in and you could hardly see the Se de Lisboa, the cathedral, on the hill opposite Queen Victoria. We put our plans on hold and decided to have a go at the team trivia in the Golden Lion pub to pass a little time. Well, we were the winners yet again, the second victory in less than 24 hours with 18/20, not even a tie break this time. Our previous victory offered up a bottle of plonk as the prize which pleased Jane, today’s victory was stamps, I think we need to earn a few more to get a meaningful prize.
The weather by now was really lousy so we decided to forgo Lisbon for lunch and headed up to the PG restaurant for lunch. I had the second meal I didn’t enjoy, Singapore style prawn noodles, It wasn’t bad, just uninspiring and nowhere near as flavoursome as I would have expected. I should have had the sweet and sour pork which was unanimously praised by the rest of the table.
The afternoon was a wash out, every time the weather seemed to brighten and we were just about to go out, it would close in again and start to rain heavily again. The scheduled entertainment was very limited as it was a shore day, with a few outdoor sporty events planned. These weren’t appealing either so it was back to the room to grab a book and relax for a while. We headed down to the Chart Room for a drink at around 5 pm where jane had the Aquarian cocktail again “A New Discovery” a simple sour reinvented with floral notes of Bergamot Rosolio and Queen Victoria’s very own gin, sounds horrible to me, but Jane liked it.
We’d gone to the A La Carte menu for dinner again, Chateabriand this time and it was delicious and huge