We dress Cynthia’s scraped leg with the antibiotic and superb bandaids we bought for David’s hand in Porto, have a leisurely breakfast in the hotel, pack, and walk the half-block to Coimbra’s train station where we board car 22, seats 111 and 113, our now stuffed suitcases sitting sedately on luggage racks right behind us. After two stops, there’s not an empty seat on the train, which is clean, comfortable and a smooth ride a bit inland from the coast through farmland and rolling hills with small towns of red roofed buildings near and far.

When we get to the Lisbon station we walk around hunting for a place to buy bus/metro/tram tickets, which Cynthia finds and gets for us and Bernadette and Byron, who will join us tomorrow and — because Byron called us three days ago to say his flight from Paris was cancelled by a strike so he had to get a new flight for a day later AND he called us two days ago to say he just tested positive for COVID but the worst of it was over — the day after tomorrow.

We download Bolt, the alternate Uber app, and summon a car whose driver apologetically winds through New York City levels of construction around the train station and harbor, heading ultimately northwest to an old section of the city where our apartment building has joined the French Embassy and other apartment buildings being renovated to the nines. WOWZER! Anne-Charlotte and Noe Saglio’s two-floor digs are a modernist, pristine dream with a long balcony that looks over the River Tagus, which looks almost as broad as the Chesapeake Bay.

We dump our bags, gawk at all the beautiful art, cabinetry, and wizard hifi system, and venture into the neighborhood to load up on victuals and booze for tonight’s “dinner-in” and for our extended stay with extended family. The local grocery store and liquor store are just around the corner and, because we have to point our Google-translate at everything to figure out what it is or what’s actually in it, it takes us some time to fill three bags full of edibles and the proper fixins for a true Negroni with smoked salmon and caper mayo on the side. Life is just too tough and horrible ….

We settle in for the evening, David cooking while Cynthia pours through maps, Rick Steves Portugal and Lisbon papers, Tripadvisor advice, and her own special sauce of ingeniously planned spreadsheets and notes while also juggling a major kerfuffle at our home because Parker has gone walkabout and it takes an army of very kind neighbors, cleaners and friends to find him locked in the guestroom closet — one of his favorite stressed spots — and set him free. Thank you Michael and Cornelia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

David brings his heart rate back to near normal and we sleep content.