Lisboa, Portugal

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Lisbon from the Elevador Santa Justa

We are staying in Cascais, a beach town only about 30 minutes by train from Lisbon.  We have made a couple of trips in to Lisbon to check it all out.  As it typical with European cities, there is of course, a lot of history.  With impressive old buildings, main squares, and tons of churches.  Well, Lisbon also had a huge castle on the hills above.  The Castle of São Jorge looms over the city.  We traveled on the old style trams up the steep hillsides to get an idea of the town.  On our first journey, we got stuck behind a parked car, that the owner managed to return to eventually, but was greeted by the police.  They had backed up a couple of the old trams, and of course, when you are on rails, there is not really anywhere you can go.   Ooooopppps!
We took a tram to the end of the line at Prazeres, not knowing that this is the biggest cemetery in town.  We walked around to take a look, as I always find cemeteries a little interesting if not morbid.  Some massive tombs and such, and one that was in the shape of a castle itself. 

Elevador Santa Justa

We also too an old funicular up the steep streets of Lisbon.  I hadn't realized how steep some of these were, but the ancient little tram like funicular was a fun and welcome ride.  On the way back down from the hills, we stumbled upon the Elevador de Santa Justa.  Apparently designed by a disciple of Gustavo Eiffel, it is a weird elevator in the middle of town, that takes you up to a viewing platform above.  We loved it, and hadn't even realized that we only paid for a ride to the top (where you can continue along a platform to the upper part of the town) and not for the PRIVATE viewing platform.  Needless to say, we had accidentally passed the ticket taker, and were checking out the town up on the perch above.  Loved all the red roof buildings and the castle above.
We spent some more time walking up and down the labyrinth of little streets but vowed to return to see more of the interiors of some of the museums, towers, and castles in town.   *Stub