Trip 45

January 22, 2024

We arrived at Madrid’s airport about 9am for our 11:25am flight. When planning this trip, we were stunned to find there’s no reasonable train service between the two cities. You can drive the 625km in 6 hours or take a train that takes 17 hours (3 changes)! The flight takes an hour. .

Lisboa or Lisbon. Which one is correct ? Lisboa is the Portuguese spelling of the city’s name, while Lisbon is the English spelling. In French, Lisbon is Lisbonne, and in German it is Lissabon. Lisbon’s name is commonly abbreviated as “LX” or “Lx”, originating in an antiquated spelling of Lisbon as Lixbõa. Different names for places in other languages are called exonyms; an endonym is the name that insiders in a group give to themselves or to a place. Without recognizing it, there are many exonyms in use. Other examples are from Italy; the city we call Florence, for example, is called Firenze in Italian. London is Londres in Catalan, Filipino, French, Galician, Portuguese, and Spanish. A simple example is England. In England it’s called England, but in France it’s called Angleterre.

There’s also no fast transportation between the Lisboa airport and the city. Public transportation takes an hour, a taxi 28 minutes.

The little we saw coming from the airport indicated Lisbon is fairly hilly. Despite it appearing hilly, the elevation is 2m above sea level. Population, 505,000.

Some background on Lisboa and Portugal. Though Portuguese is the language, I’ve been able to decipher some road signs and my ancient Spanish.