Christmas in Lisbon

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends! Traveling is great, but I’d rather be on the other side of the Atlantic with my family today. 

We celebrated Christmas in Lisbon. It’s been raining for a few days and transportation was  limited today so we chose to stay put. We took our time making and eating breakfast at the hotel. It was nice to lounge a bit because Marko and I both seem to be getting sick.

We walked around downtown Lisbon and the Alfama district for a few hours in the morning. There were more people about than we expected.   We ended up at the Lisbon cathedral just as Christmas mass was beginning..so we joined! We got ushered in and stood at the back during a few hymns and prayers. I was surprised; a few tourists seemed to come and go just as we did. The sun made a brief appearance just before we got caught in a torrential downpour.

Marko read that the Oceanarium was open in the afternoon. We thought it would be a nice rainy-day activity while everyone else was at home eating Christmas dinner. Apparently everyone else had the same idea; it was pretty busy! 

The Oceanarium was fabulous!  A giant central tank included sharks, sting-rays, and all sorts of other weird and wonderful fish. There were also smaller tanks filled with tropical fish, cuddle fish, octopus, jelly fish, penguins, puffins, otters etc.; so many interesting sea creatures!

We finished the day by filling up on an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.  Not quite turkey dinner, but not bad.