Travelog post for: Josie

Hello, dear mom! 

Your little doggie is in Portugal and has been here allready for two weeks.
I´m sorry I´ve had no possibility to make uploads before, we have been so awfully busy - eating and seeing new places and eating more, you know.. 


So we flew here in the beginning of November. We all had a slight headache for some unknown reason.. 

Here we are on the Helsinki airport watching the planes to be washed.



Our first plane, the plane to Frankfurt was late, and Henna was a bit nervous if we would have enough time to catch our second flight to Lisbon. But we toyvoyagers were just enjoying ourselves - we are so experienced travellers that we don´t care much about were we are - we are always "here" - the "here" just travels from one place to another. 



There is christmas trees all year round in Helsinki airport to stress the fact that Finland is the country where Santa Claus (Joulupukki in finnish) lives, although some unenlightened people imagine him to live in North Pole or who knows where. 



At last we get into our plane, but sadly we didn´t get a window seat, so we couldn´t take photos trough the window. 



So we were just running and climbing over peoples feet and heads and making everyone go crazy by singing a finnish song Tuli taught to us, which has hundred verses, until the airhostesses brought us coffee, and I doubt they had mixed sleeping pills into it because we slept rest of the flight and only woke up for few moments in Frankfurt airport where we took our second flight. 






So it was already late night when we arrived to Lisbon and saw the river Tejo for first time. Beautiful, isn´t it? 



We get into our Portuguese home in Almada, which is in the opposite shore of river Tejo, just opposite Lisbon, and there we ate the wonderful dinner our portuguese friends had prepared just for us - wonderful soup. 



And delicious sardine. 



Then we were introduced to Sibila, an eighteen year old siamese cat, who has got enough personality and temperament to share with five other cats. 



Next day we made our first seightseeing round in Lisbon. Zoe, who has already been here many times, was working as our turist guide, with a red sign to follow and all. 



Here we are watching the "Cais das Colunas", which was the place many centuries ago where portuguese ships returned from their trips to Africa and other faraway areas, loaded with robbed treasures.



It was great to feel the warm sand under our paws. 
For local people it is of course winter, but for us, coming from Finland, it is a summer. 



We walked to see the Praça do Comercio, which is one of the main squares of Lisbon. In mediaeval times it worked as a place for public hangings, and later as a place where the most important shipping companies were placed.



These pompous buildings are where their headquarters were situated. Nowadays they work mainly as restaurants. There is also a museum telling about the history of the city. 



We saw some nice azulejos (tiles) with which the buildings were here  paved in older times.  Portuguese people learned the style from the moors during the moorish occupation.



Then we went to see another important square called Rossio. 



And the statue of king Dom Pedro V. (And a guy who tried to sell us some interesting looking pills). 



We climbed into a viewpoint called Portas do Sol (Doors of the sun) to admire the beautiful view over the city of Lisbon. 



There was very cute trams passing by every now and then, and Henna told us that part of them had been in traffic since 1930´s. We wanted to make a driwe ! 



It was very interesting! The driwere was pulling all sort of wheels and handles and the old tram was making huge noises, shaking and rocking along the streets.



The tram took us to Belem, where we saw the monastery of Belem, but it was closed since it was a monday, and we are still going to make a proper visit. 



The portuguese royalty was bowing their heads to us, which is quite natural, of course, krhm! 



We were hanging for awhile in a small, beautiful park.



There is a nice roof, where the colorfull leaves form the pavement. The local old guys sit under in summer evenings playing dominoes or cards, but now it is too cold for them.Not for us, though! But we are a tough gang. 



Then we came back home and ate some bread from the Alentejo area, which has a head. 

See you again, mom! I try  to write soon!
Your Josie