"About a quarter past nine. It opens at ten," says she.
"You know that the kids want to go on the train to Lisbon, don't you?" asks I.
It was decided. We would drive down to Monte Estoril and catch the train into Lisbon, use the Metro to get to the Lego Exhibition at Campo Pequeno and have a thoroughly enjoyable family day out.
Sunday morning, at half past nine, which is good going for us, we set off in the car towards our usual parking spot in the centre of Monte Estoril. It was still fairly quiet in Monte Estoril so we drove past a number of empty spaces, heading for our usual spot nearer the train station. Unfortunately the road we usually park on, which leads down adjacent to the hotel onto the Marginal, was closed. There was a policeman stood there guarding the barrier, through which we could clearly see that the Marginal was also closed for some kind of bicycle race. Ten minutes later, having driven around the houses a little, we were back at the top end of Monte Estoril and satisfactorily parked in one of the previously ignored empty spaces. A quick walk down to the train station, tickets charged and validated, a good deed done helping a couple use the ticket machine, and, we were off.
Many fun and exciting games were played on the train including such classics as "I spy" and "Count the stations" which seemed to help pass the time. Also on the train I spotted a poster for the Lego exhibition, on which, if my Portuguese is anything to go by, it stated that the entrance to the exhibition was at Entrecampos, one Metro station removed from Campo Pequeno. We figured that the entrance to the exhibition must be around the far end of the Campo Pequeno building. Half an hour or so later, we arrived at Cais de Sodre in Lisbon. The escalators lead directly down from the platform to the Metro, where we destined to play the always enjoyable "Follow the coloured lines on the underground map" game. Green line to Baixa-Chiado then change on to the blue line to Marquês do Pombal, and finally, the yellow line up to Entrecampos.
Walking up the stairs back out into the sunshine and a somewhat fierce wind at Entrecampos we realised that we'd made a mistake. Clearly the poster was wrong. All the clues were there. The journey underground between Campo Pequeno and Entrecampos was too long. The road sign towards Campo Pequeno was pointing up a long and steep hill. And nowhere could we see anything that looked even remotely connected to the Lego Event. It was by now very nearly midday, so we decided to make the most of our situation. There was a small park area across the far side of the roundabout and a supermarket. We popped inside, bought some food and drink, and took 20 minutes out sitting on a park bench re-fueling, watching the pigeons and collecting our thoughts before heading back down to the Metro to re-trace our steps back to Campo Pequeno.
Anyway, enough blathering. We got there in the end. And had a fantastic time. I doubt that we will win the "Guess How Many Bricks Are In The Box" competition, but I did take a lot of pictures of the exhibits. Here are some of them.
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