20261024 Saturday, October 24, 2026; Madrid to Lisbon

20261024 Saturday, October 24, 2026; Madrid to Lisbon

Ben’s sleep score has finally risen from low to high with 5.75 hrs of sleep recorded last night. The restaurant was especially busy and crowded this morning with the staff frantically clearing and resetting tables as quickly as possible. Viking has a constant stream of passengers arriving and departing not only from the Douro River cruise, but with a large majority of passengers actually booked on Viking Ocean Mediterranean cruises embarking and disembarking in Barcelona on both pre- and post-cruise extensions.  

Today we flew out of Madrid on an A320 on TAP Portugal Airlines. This was another plane with a fake business class section where the first 4 rows simply had the middle seats blocked out. We had been assigned seats putting Janet in row 3 and Ben in row 4. But when boarding was done, it turned out that we each had a row all to ourselves. The plane looked to be at about 80% capacity. Of our pre-cruise extensions group of 12 passengers, two had been assigned to take a 4 p.m. flight out, while the rest of us were on an 11:30 a.m. flight. They had been told that there were not any more available seats on the earlier flight, but in retrospect, they should have come to the airport with us on a standby basis. They would have made it on board.    

We did get to spend an hour in the VIP lounge at the airport, but since we had just had breakfast, Ben just had another café latte, and Janet raided the candy jars. The Madrid airport terminals are like a huge shopping mall with large high-end stores offering all manner of brand-name luxury goods.  

The flight across Spain showed a lot of agricultural land with a sprinkling of cities, most of which had a central stadium for bullfighting, soccer, or both. There were a lot of plots that looked like agricultural land which had been converted to solar panel farms. It’s easily conceivable that a farmer could make more money producing electricity than grain.    

Lisbon’s “Golden Gate Bridge” officially April 25 Bridge since 1974’s “Carnation Revolution” restoring Democracy to Portugal.

There was a brief meal service during which we were served a fruit platter and egg custard pastry, which is a specialty of Portugal.  

The plane touched down in Lisbon, and we walked down air stairs onto the tarmac and into awaiting buses, which drove us to the terminal. The weather was perfect with blue skies and temperatures in the lower 60s.  

There was a little confusion after exiting the baggage claim because there wasn’t the usual easy-to-spot person holding a Viking sign overhead. Instead, there was an area where tour operators were corralled, and the Viking agents had been busily rounding up passengers from other terminals. We did connect and waited for the rest of our group to come out.  

We met a couple from Dallas-Fort Worth who were also going on the Viking Hemming Douro river cruise, and they happened to be Bob’s sister, Patty, and her husband, Dan, who were joining Bob and Cathy, whom we had already met in Madrid.  

The airport transfer took about 20 minutes, depositing us at the Corinthia Hotel, which is very close to the Lisbon Zoo but about 3 miles from the waterfront. Fortunately, we later learned that Viking does operate a shuttle van to take passengers to the tourist core that runs about every half hour during the day.

The hotel staff and Viking hosts greeted us the moment we stepped out of the airport transfer bus and swept our luggage off and took us to the check-in counter.    

High tech elevator controls- tap card, select floor on panel, board the assigned elevator.

Our room was ready, and we were pleasantly surprised to find a much larger room filled with sunlight with a huge window looking out over the hotel grounds. This was a welcome change from the air shaft view we had in Madrid. While our room in Madrid had a full-size mattress, the mattress in the Lisbon hotel was a queen. In terms of square footage, the room at the Corinthia was twice the size.

Our luggage arrived within 20 minutes, so we could unpack and take a brief nap before our 3 p.m. orientation walk around the hotel.   

We have both a local guide— Bruno— and a program director— Hugo— for this Lisbon stay. Hugo will continue with us onto the ship and remain with us to the end of the cruise.  

Bruno did the 3 p.m. walking tour, pointing out nearby restaurants, ATMs, and nearby museums. He did give us advice on how to avoid predatory currency exchange fees.  

After ending the orientation walk, we walked to the Gulbenkian Foundation Gardens.  

Calouste Gulbenkian was one of the earliest oil tycoons and one of the world’s wealthiest individuals when he died in 1955. He was nicknamed “Mr. Five Percent” for owning a fixed 5% of Iraqi Petroleum Company and being the first person to exploit Iraqi oil. He amassed a huge collection of art and became renowned for his philanthropic work.  

Bruno had mentioned that the Gulbenkian Museum was free after 2 p.m., but Ben did not catch that he said it was only free after 2 p.m. on Sundays, which we discovered when we found quite a line of people at the ticket counter. But we did browse through the gift shop and admired a Rodan and other sculptures in the lobby before wandering through the gardens which surround the multi-building campus which has a lake, amphitheater, and fountains. It was interesting to see so many young couples and families enjoying picnics on the grounds and relaxing. We ran into a couple that had also been on the walking orientation and learned they were from Vancouver and had arrived this morning for the same Douro River cruise.    

We returned to the hotel and attended the 6 p.m. welcome talk by program director Hugo. This outlined the itinerary and some optional excursion activities. It was the equivalent of the daily ship briefing for this land-based part of the trip. This included complimentary Douro wines. Janet learned some Portuguese, including “branco” for white wine and “tinto” for red wine. We also learned not to use the word “Gracias” in Portugal as the Portuguese really don’t like being mistaken for Spanish. Obrigado (when men use the word) or Obrigada (for women’s usage) is the correct term.  

We discovered that the luggage tags we had been issued still had our original stateroom number on them (103), not reflecting our upgrade to a Veranda (307) by Viking 2 weeks ago, so Hugo said he would contact the ship to make sure our luggage and ourselves ended up in the Veranda rather than the waterline window room.  

Following the meeting, we walked across the street to check out the sea food restaurant that Bruno had recommended. We could see through the window a few couples who had also been at the orientation walk dining inside. The menu was mostly seafood as the name would imply, and most entrees were about 30€. We had hoped to try the Portuguese comfort food açorda, which is made with stale bread, garlic, cilantro, herbs, and seafood. So we walked to the next nearest place about 2 blocks from the hotel, A Carvoaria, a small family-owned churrasqueira or grill. Just inside the front door is a refrigerator case with fresh seafood and meats on display, and at the front window is the grill where the meats and seafood are grilled to order. The entrees were more varied and ranged from 15-30€. More importantly, they had Açorda de Gambas in a sharable portion for two for 40€, which was exactly what we were looking for.    

We had this with a local Portuguese beer and sangria for a really hearty and filling dinner. The service was outstanding and friendly. We felt like family there. At the conclusion of our meal, he poured us complimentary glasses of Ginja, which is Port made with sour cherries. Contrary to the description of the cherries as sour, this liquor was very sweet and perfect to sip after dinner.    

We dropped into a small “Chinese” shop, which are scattered all over Lisbon and recognizable by a pair of Chinese lanterns hanging under the eaves out front. These are family-run bodegas filled with all manner of Chinese-made goods from shoes, Spanx, tools, and electronics, kind of like a neighborhood TEMU. 

Tomorrow, we have our formal Lisbon excursion, which includes the Maritime Museum and the Lisbon riverfront.