This involves taking 2 different buses, for a total travel time of over 8 hours. No better day than today to be a travel day, as it's super gloomy outside!
It's been a while since I last took a Flixbus, one of the most popular bus lines across Europe. The 1st bus was completely full! The driver even disallowed me to carry my day pack on the bus because it was so full, and I had to leave it in the bag holding area.
The first bus took about 4 hrs to get to Lisbon, and I was very surprised to find it super foggy. This isn't normal, is it?
It's 1hr 45 mins waiting time before my next bus departs at 3.55pm, and so I headed into the nearest mall at Vasco da Gama, located just next to the main bus station, to use the washroom and just relax.
The next bus was more empty, and it took about 2.5hr to reach Coimbra, arriving at about 6.30pm.
Who knew that sitting in bus for almost the whole day can be such a tiring affair!
I decided to call an Uber to get me to the hostel "Change The World", instead of walking over, which would had taken me about 25 minutes.
I had some problems checking in as I was told I would receive an email with entry codes to the main door and to the room I will be staying in, but I never received it.
I met 2 French guys at the hostel, when I asked to borrow their phone to make a local call to the hostel owner to help me navigate to my room. I was very surprised to see his phone in Mandarin and even more surprised when he started speaking fluent Mandarin. Probably even better than my Mandarin!
I finally managed to get into my room and settled in, and then quickly popped out to get dinner, but not before stopping a local on the street and asking for his recommendation for food around the area.
He suggested I visit a restaurant called "Giro", which he visits almost every weekend, and a short walk from where we were.
I ordered one of their daily menu items - Fried Hake Fillet with seafood rice.
Thankfully I ordered a half portion instead of a full one, because I couldn't even finish the half portion, and had to doggy bag the balance.
Barely even 9pm, and I have noticed that the town is almost dead. Only a handful of places were still open, and hardly much people on the street.
So rare to see this in Portugal, especially all the other places I had visited in Portugal so far were still bustling with activity even after 10pm.
The town looked really charming with the narrow cobbled streets though, but I suppose I will be able to see more tomorrow in the light!
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