LISBON - Portugal

From the Navigator’s record " after exiting the breakwaters and dropping off our local pilot, the ship set westerly courses into the North Atlantic Ocean followed by west-northwesterly courses. Late in the night we rounded Cabo de Sao Vicente in Portugal 16 nautical miles off our starboard side. In the early hours of the morning we will embark our pilot and enter the channel to approach Lisbon. Throughout our entrance we will pass various sites of interest at less than one mile off on our port side as we follow the winding channel before passing under the Ponte 25 de April Bridge and coming alogside our berth " ..... Indeed we reach Lisbon at six in the morning of Tuesday June 3 , 2008 with much expectation for another exciting city to visit.

If you look at the map, Portugal is a small country compared to the land mass of Spain. With a population of 10,642,836 and land area of 36,390 square miles including the Azores and Madeira Islands, Spoken and official language is Portuguese unlike Spain, Italy, and other European countries where multi- lingual is practiced. In a way this reflects the uniqueness of the country. It s government is Parliamentary Democracy and Lisbon is the capital. Portugal is slightly smaller than Indiana. As you have noticed when it comes to country size, the comparison is always made to those in the US for obvious reason because the US has such a vast land mass ( though Russia and Europe too are no exception) and any named State in the US is easier to identify. The other obvious reason is the majority of these cruise ships’ passengers are Americans or Canadians as proven at all our past cruises.

Portugal always brings to mind the stories of the Portuguese explorers who make legends of themselves through their exploits of land and sea. Theirs and the Spanish ships armadas cannot but paint pictures of armored warriors and sailors who lived on adventures to create the so called New World of that time. Unfortunately though, quite often they had potrayed cruelty and destruction to wherever they landed on. Theirs was not to spread a new civilization of peace and harmony but one of hate and betrayal. It could be also because they were themselves unprepared for the newly discovered world and fear being killed by the "natives" that they stumbled on. Thus they became plunderers rather than messengers of peace. Well, that was history then, but today Portugal is a unique country of its own.

Lisbon , the Portuguese city of our visit, they say , is always a delightful surprise. Draped across the seven hills, Lisbon was once the centre of a vest maritime empire that stretched from the west coast of Africa to the Spice Islands of the East Indies. Then, on November 1st, 1755, a violent earthquake destroyed two-thirds of the city in the space of 10 minutes. Only the Alfama, the old Moorish quarter, survived. Today Lisbon is a stately city of neoclassical buildings, as proven by our short visit to the city, wide plazas, ancient castles and cathedrals. Eternally linked to the sea, Lisbon’s magnificent harbour is spanned by the longest suspension bridge in Europe. Although it possesses few stunning wonders like Rome, Sicily, Paris and even London, it nevertheless is reputed for one of the world’s most pleasant cities.

A large port at the mouth of the Tagus River, Lisbon is the cultural heart of Portugal. It was from here that much of the great wave of exploration started in the 15th century. Legend has it that Lisbon was founded by Ulysses, and called Olisipo after him. The Phoenicians are the more likely founders, possibly as early as 1200 BC Following were the Romans as seen by several ruins in the city. As in neighbouring Spain, Portugal was occupied by the Moors between the 8th and 12th centuries. The Black Death devastated the population in 1348 just as a large part of the city was destroyed by the earthquake of 1755 which also killed 30,000 people.

History has it in 1974 there was a bloodless revolution in 1974 which results in the restoration of democracy after the regime of Antonio Salazar was overthrown. Ironically it was Salazar in 1966 using the same engineering principles used to build the Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco, who constructed the mile-and-a-half long bridge Ponte 25 de April Bridge that now spans the Tagus River. Despite so many natural disasters, parts of the city still share their ancient secrets with the visitors whilst exploits of past heroes such as Perera who assured Portuguese independence from Spain, Alfonso de Albuquerque who opened trade with India, Vasco da Gama who made the epic journey to India around the tip of Africa and Pedro Alvares Cabral who discovered Brazil, are well remembered by the people until today.

Our morning tour of the city highlights brings us to see sights of important landmarks, cathedrals and ancient ruins as well as The Baixa quarter or Lower Town which is the hub of modern Lisbon. Thus we see the famous "Black Horse" on the river front with its triumphal arch. Behind it is a neat grid of streets where traffic is closed to traffic but opened to pedestrians only. It is famous for the local handicrafts. Baixa is the city centre of banks, offices, upscale boutiques as well as street vendors. The impression that stays in our mind after this short visit to Lisbon is it is like the sleepy hollow of Malacca where visitors go to relax and wonder at its historical significance of the role that it plays in the early history of voyages and explorations that help to open Europe to other civilizations previously unknown to these Europeans. But then as I mention in my earlier article on Spain when the Spaniards were very hostile visitors to the places that they landed on, the Portuguese too are no exception to this especially with their Jesuits priests who were masters of betrayals and deceptions and practiced the ideology "the end justifies the means ". However, what we see of the Lisbon populace of today, it is a peaceful loving people unlike the warlords of their historical past. Lisbon is a worthwhile city to visit.

We return to our ship to enjoy the evening tea at the De Vinci where I always enjoy the scones there whilst other appertives are also served to meet the taste buds of others. Both of us eat sparingly to enable us to enjoy the early dinner but enjoy the ambiance of the place. The dinner menu whets our appetites with its repeated lobster meat creation and other equally interesting dishes. Whilst I always go for my four course dinner choice, I make sure that that it is not too full to make me sleepy for the rest of the night when as usual there are goings on to entertain everyone’s needs.

One of the places that passengers enjoy being at is the Lotus Fitness Centre, situated on Deck 14 forward . It provides something for everyone from the cardiovascular equipment, machine weights and a wide variety of free weights to some of the latest concepts in the fitness industry, such as the "Pathway to Yoga Program" and the "Pilates Program". Pathway to Yoga is an introduction to Yoga with two levels, suitable for the complete beginner right through to the experienced Yogi ( no similarity to Yogi bear ! ). Yoga has always fascinates me even in those early days when I used to go the Club in the wee early morning to play tennis or squash. Whenever I did my Gigong at the all purpose hall next to the Men’s changing room, I used to watch the others doing the Yoga varieties of exercises amongst which was the final relaxing posture of sleep. However what discouraged me from joining the group was my observation that almost all the Yogis were slightly on the fat side with bulging tummies. Hence I could not see how I could reduce my weight with Yoga ! A retired Swiss Nestle Director who chooses Malaysia as his family’s permanent home and who plays a lot of tennis tells me a different story about Yoga though. He finds it most beneficial to gaining back the ability to litheful muscles and stimulating the blood flow to all parts of the body. Still I will not be able to do that given the damages to my knee joints cartilage. Anyway, the Pilates Program is a mind and body form of exercise focusing on improving core strength, flexibility and overall body tone. Thus the Grand Princess is currently the only cruise ship to provide both one to one mat based Piltea programs and one to one Pilates Body Reformer Programs. It is one of those things that Ainul and I would wish to do given money and time to indulge in the next time we cruise again - no I don’t mean these but many others that are available on board for those passengers who long for complete pleasure and relaxation.

Tonight's entertainment create split choice between the Vista Lounge "Shake Rattle & Roll" and The Princess Thaetre International Crew Talent Show. Since we are not about to delay our dinner to be able to attend the former which we had seen the other night, we opt to see the latter, which turns out to be quite interesting. Almost every time when we see this crew talent show, it is the Filipinos who out shine the rest in singing. They are a real talented lot. The only thing is their English pronounciations are much to be desired although their voices and renditions are very good.

Over at Deck 14 and 15 the Movies Under The Stars features "Mad Money" which is currently showing in KL and which we have wanted to see. I plan to see this one here but again I miss it when at the end of the Princess Theate show we got carried away by other attractions such as the handmade carpets "Timeless Treasures" which displays elegant and beautiful carpets with prices ranging from affordable to the only for the very rich ! Carpets always intrigues me and the carpet sellers are a unique set of people who seem to exist in any parts of the world trading and displaying almost the same thing which they claim different from the others !

By the time we decide to bed down , the sea is very rough indeed to make us walk like drunkards but not enough to make us sea sick though. In the early days of my cruise with a rough sea like tonight, I would most certainly be sea sick. When we venture to go out to the deck’s verandah to watch the waves, we can feel the strong gushing winds and the high swells of the waves which occasionally hit the side of our ship. We do not stay out for long for fear that our thoughts might wander to The Atlantis ill fated cruise .

It has been quite a day and like previous days past this is a no less memorable one for us.