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| Annaliza and Tony with Redfoo and Skyblu of LMFAO fame. Can't believe we bumped into these crazy dudes! |
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| Got the ticket - yeeeha! |
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| LMFAO'ing |
Timed our arrival in Lisboa to coincide with rush hour, a real
bonus! Efficiency and organised were two words sadly lacking for collecting
tickets to the Optimus Alive festival – had to talk to 4 different people
before finding out that we needed to go to the festival entry point to get our
tickets, then back to the campsite to pitch the tent before heading back and
being allowed into the festival...
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| Alfama from above |
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| Not the best idea to drive in these conditions... |
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The impressive arch
(yep - don't know the proper
name for that either!) |
Rude awakenings to the baking Lisboa sun were par for the course – to the uninitiated make sure you set your tent up with morning shade in mind, schoolboy error! Again, after foolishly taking the car ‘downtown’ (where you have to play dare with the trams), we plodded the cobbled streets round the highlights of the various city districts.
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| A pre-festival warm up |
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| A quick refresher |
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| The main square, but no wine tasting |
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| Getting on the free stuf |
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Annaliza would do anything
for a free T-Shirt... Not sure if
this made it to National TV though! |
Timed our trip to the wine tasting
centre in the main square poorly, so missed out there, but made up for it once
in to the festival that evening. Poked our noses into a random stand and got
invited to the top deck where free beers were flowing. Ker-ching! This eased
the disappointment of Florence and the Machine not playing (hope the throat’s
better Flo!) but Morcheeba provided a fun flashback to our youths.
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| The Moorish castle at Evora |
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| Sintra |
Sintra, a fairytale village an hour out of Lisboa, was next.
A lovely place – picturesque houses, more cobbled laneways (where we couldn’t
resist tucking into an assortment of tapas) topped off with a Moorish castle
providing awesome views over the surrounding countryside. This was an Eastern
European’s dream, and we couldn’t avoid the assortment of potential models
striking ridiculous poses on the ramparts – don’t call us, we’ll call you!
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| A perfect post festival pick me up! |
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| There were a few wine snobs about |
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| Can I get a shout out to Torquay? |
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| Radiohead time |
The last day of the festival was the one that drew us to it
in the first place - Radiohead headlining - they didn’t disappoint. Was also a
bonus to see part of the act from the Martini rooftop (following an underground
cinema-esque entry process! Annaliza LOOOOVES Martini!). Pushed on through the
night (ably assisted by a couple of chicken donna kebabs!) to see Metromony
perform the last set of the festival, where Tony’s shout outs to Torquay and
the English Riviera were either unheard, or ignored…
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| Bye bye festie - thanks for the good times |
Key Learnings:
1. LMFAO go off as do the crowd when playing live.
Party Rock was definitely the song of the festival, being played pretty much on
repeat at the campsite over the next 3 days.
2. Supermarkets in Spain and Portugal have a delightful
aroma of dried fish – mmmm! They are also generally MASSIVE so bring your
walking shoes!
3. Stalls with viewing galleries at festivals are
not always exclusively for VIP’s – it is worth a shot to get up there and you
never know what you might get. The count at the end of the festival was free
beer (multiple), t-shirts (ended up with 5), a bag, personalised badges (x4), a
‘professional photo shoot’ (actually just 1 photo), hats (x2) and martini
cocktails…
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