72 TALES OF ADVENTURE: LISBON


Sept/Oct 2022 Travel News


MONMOUTHSHIRE TRAVEL WRITER NIGEL HEATH RECALLS HIS FIST OVERSEAS ADVENTURE


BY NIGEL HEATH


THE seventeen-year-old me was sparked into a sudden desire to visit Lisbon after watching a cinema documentary, so I bought a one- way rail ticket from a travel agency, costing £14,


half my week’s wages at the time. I left the shores of England on


train from Newhaven on a moonlit night and spent the early


hours the dawn.


Arriving at the Gare de Nord station, I took a taxi to the Gare Austerlitz, as a great ball of a sun illuminated the cityscape and with it came a sudden warmth, lifting my spirits and sparking a familiar tingle of excitement.


Just using my French francs to buy a roll


and a coffee was a mini adventure and I revelled in my newly found freedom as I sat on a platform waiting for the train to Irun on the Franco-Spanish border. Every seat was reserved, so I found a convenient corner at the end of one of the carriages and dumped my rucksack there to make my own unofficial reservation. A large number of the Spaniards were also without reservations, so when the train pulled out of the station, a mass of sweating bodies and a jumble of luggage crammed all the corridors, making it virtually impossible for the ticket collector to move between the carriages. I bravely held my little corner space against all comers and formed a friendly alliance with a Spanish family.


Changing trains at Irun in the late evening, I suddenly became aware of the Spanish guards in their dark green uniforms and strange three-cornered black hats with matching belts and menacing machine pistols. I had only seen weapons on films and


it felt quite menacing. Everyone, was going the same way, so I was swept along through passport control, where I proudly acquired my second ever stamp, and out


rattling through darkened


French countryside towards Paris and the a boat onto a long dimly lit platform.


Our new train was in darkness and not about to go anywhere and I suddenly noticed that my adopted Spanish family had moved a little away from the platform and had already started a fire.


To my delight they beckoned to me to join them and no sooner had I done so, then a couple of cooked chickens and several bottles of red wine were produced from one of their battered suitcases. Sitting against my rucksack in the


did have something of a Beatle hair-cut and with Beatlemania sweeping across Europe, I was obviously a bit of a curiosity. I quickened my pace and so did they, so now what was I going to do? Thankfully the answer came almost immediately with the sudden appearance of a large green and black Mercedes taxi.


Luckily on this occasion, I was prepared


and fished out the address of the Lisbon Youth Hostel. I had had virtually no sleep for three nights so all I wanted now was a bed.


But unfortunately, it was not to be. The warden looked at my brand new International hostelling card and shook his head. He was full, it being vacation time. “Maybe they will have some room at the University Hostel. I will give them a call,” he said. I stood there in the reception area, while he disappeared into his office.


“You are in luck. I have made you a reservation and written down the address. You can get a bus from right outside,” he told me.


It was dark when I eventually


firelight, beneath a canopy of particularly bright stars, I suddenly felt my adventures had really begun! The euphoria wore off in the early hours


as I lay on a rocking and draughty floor in a freezing corridor completely unable to sleep.


Crossing the border into Portugal at midday, the train eventually pulled into Lisbon around 6pm and I stepped out into another completely strange and slightly uncomfortable world.


The station was in a busy, run-down part of the city, so I headed for higher ground, because that was likely to be more prosperous, and was soon


winding my way up


through a maze of narrow streets.


Music and chatter wafted from the interior of a dozen bars, there were lines of washing strung from lofty open windows and caged birds chirped on flower filled balconies.


Passing a group of kids playing ball, they stopped and stared at me. “Beatle” one shouted and they all began laughing and following me up the hill. Oh God! I


Dozens of pretty girls were promenading on the arms of young men in desert uniforms with ‘Angola’ flashes on their arms.


found the hostel and pushed the bell. The door was opened by a young woman who, leading me wearily up the stairs and into a crowded dining room, motioned me to a seat opposite an American lad, who suggested we go and listen to a folk group. Madly, I agreed, so we hopped on a tram down the hill and soon emerged in the city’s main Restauradores Square, ablaze with lights and the splashing from fountains.


For this was the time of the Portuguese dictator Dr Salazar, who he was still holding on to his possession in Central Africa.


A few minutes in a hot and noisy bar were enough to tell me, it was time to leave, but when I emerged into the square, I realised I hadn’t a clue how to get back, and then I realized, I could follow those tram lines! When I awoke, it must have been around mid-morning because the other three beds were empty. I had breakfast at a crowded pavement café and took a city bus tour to take in all those sights I had first seen in that darkened cinema and had so excited me.


After a couple of days of roaming around the city and riding on its lovely old trams, the euphoria wore off and I began to wonder what to do next.


‘I know,’ I suddenly said to myself, feeling


that now familiar tingle of excitement at the prospect of a new travel experience. ‘I’ll sail home!’


I was wandering around the port area at the time and there in front of me were the offices of Frans Lawson, shipping agents, and I walked in. I was in luck. The Ascania, carrying Empire citizens from Jamaica to new lives in Britain, was sailing the following afternoon and the four-day passage would cost £12, which was almost all I had left. I handed over the cash, he wrote me out a ticket and gave me instructions about finding the right quay and I left feeling over the moon at the prospect of yet another little adventure, with my first ever voyage! The full story of my trip and voyage home can be found on ‘A Wander Through my Life by Nigel Heath, available on Amazon Kindle.


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