The Witty Traveller Blog: Lisbon, A Giant "Fuck You" To The Disabled

If you're wheelchair bound or on crutches in Portugal you've got it tough. Between the slippery cobblestones, treacherous steps, and massive hills with narrow pathways barely wide enough for one person this seems like a city designed to weed out the mobility challenged amongst it's population. I don't think I've seen a single wheelchair ramp or wheelchair accessible train station so it looks like the only option would be to latch on to the back of one of the recklessly fast taxi's that hoon about the streets. I'm pretty sure most of the cab drivers base their fare structure on how scared their passengers are by the end of the ride, and their tips on how many near death experiences that they graced various pedestrians with.

It's no wonder that the inhabitants of Bairro Alto all seem to be so fit, there are some hills so steep in this suburb that there are special trams that run up and down some of the hills. A few of these are specially modified so that the wheels are at a 30° angle to the main body of the tram. I'm wishing that our tourist map had altitudes as well as just streets as it seems to take us much longer to walk anywhere with Sancha taking quick rest breaks between each section of steps.

On the bright side the large hills means a spectacular view of the city from the Castelo de São Jorge that we visited. The castle even has a camera obscura with a periscope which is used to give 360° views of the city from the top room of one of the castles towers. One of the more impressive sights is the 25th of April Bridge (which looks quite similar to the Golden Gate bridge) and the massive Christ the King monument standing nearby (which was inspired by, and looks quite similar to, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro). The castle, like most other places in Portugal, also comes fully equipped with a bunch of old guys playing cards.

We also took the opportunity to go and get some authentic Portuguese style roast chicken. It was so good we went back another night for dinner and had even more awesome Portuguese cuisine, including some fantastic whole grilled sardines.