Lisbon, Portugal

After spending a day and a half at sea playing trivia and winning a bottle of champagne at music trivia because one of us is an outgoing, dance maniac (not Peggy) we went to bed and set our clocks back an hour.

We woke up in time to see us entering the Tagus river estuary en route to Lisbon. Overnight, we passed through teh Straits of Gibraltar and were rocked and rolled all night long causing a lack of sleep. Afer breakfast and trivia (15/20) we got ready to disembark for a Shore excursion to teh Maritime Museum and the Jeromina Monastery as well as Alfima, the oldest part of Lisbon. As teh ship docked at noon, our tour didn't start until 1PM and with our tour guide, Rita, we set off. The maritime museum was awesome and I got some great pics of model frigates as well as the royal barge. We stoped for photo opps at Edward VII park, in honor of the priince from England, the Belem Fortress, and the Monument to Henry the navigator. We also toured the Monastery cathedral (ABC) where we viewed Vasco de Gama's tomb. While walking through the Alfima district, we learned of the conflicts with the Moors in the 1100's which gave way to the Kingdom of Portugal until Salazar formed a dictatorship, which was overthrown in the last century giving way to a democratically elected president. Salazar did some good, ordering the bulding of schools, hospitals and a bridgein his name (now know as the April 26th bridge, the date the dictatorship ended) as well as bringing economic stability to the Country. His pechant for wars in Africa to protect Portugals interest, at great cost, made his regime unpopuar and it was ousted in a military coup.

Tomorrow is an at sea day as we sail towards Ponta del Gata in the Azores and our trans-Atlantic crossing back to North America. I look forward to yet another of John Maxtone-Graham's lectures tomorrow.ma's tomb. After walking through the Alfama district, and learning about the history of the oldest section of 
Lisboa, we returned to the ship