I have dwelt only upon the winter climatic conditions, because it is in this respect that misapprehension usually exists. The spring and autumn climate generally is simply perfect, and from the middle of March onward fine warm weather, with only an occasional heavy shower in April, May, and October, may be counted upon almost with certainty. During the particular tour of which this book is a record, I passed thirty days in Portugal in the month of October. Out of this period I saw rain on four days only—namely, three hours of deluge at Oporto, a portion of the day at Bussaco, and two days at Lisbon; whilst in previous journeys in Portugal I have on more than one occasion seen an even smaller quantity of rain in October, April, and May. November is usually wet, though not so wet as at Biarritz or Nice for the same month (Lisbon, 106 milimetres; Biarritz, 122 milimetres; Nice, 114 milimetres), whilst in December and January Lisbon and Biarritz have about an equal rainfall, Nice being in those months drier than either. From March onward Lisbon has a decided advantage over both places.
Byron, who, much as he loved Cintra, hated Lisbon and the Portuguese generally, which perhaps is not very surprising when it is considered that he visited it in 1809, after the first French invasion and before the Peninsular War, thus wrote of Lisbon:—
“What beauties does Lisboa first unfold; Her image floating on that noble tide, Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold, And now whereon a thousand keels do ride.
But whoso entereth within this town, That sheening far celestial seems to be, Disconsolate will wander up and down, Mid many things unsightly to strange ee.”
The story of the expedition is told in full in “The Year after the Armada,” by the present writer.
Lisbon, 738 milimetres; Biarritz, 1067 milimetres; Nice, 766 milimetres.
Tyneside itself cannot be more disagreeable than Lisbon on the rare occasions when really bad weather comes up the Tagus from the west. Smoke of unusual blackness and abundance is poured without let or hindrance from innumerable industrial chimneys by the water-side, and the heavy sea-mist, clinging and wet, holds the carbon in its embrace until the atmosphere would hardly disgrace a London particular at Blackwall. I had stood it for a day, but as I knew I could get away from it by a short railway journey out of the valley of the Tagus I determined to endure it no longer, but to fly to the other side of the hills. The weather was as bad as ever when I started the next morning by the ferry-boat to cross the four miles or so of river to Barreiro, which is the terminus of the southern system of railways for Lisbon. Through an arid-looking country of vines producing the famous Lavradio wine, but ugly and poor, on the slopes of the Tagus watershed, we gradually rose to the region of pines and eucalyptus. Leaving all the mist and rain behind us we topped the sandy hills and descended towards the south in an atmosphere brilliantly clear and as exhilarating as nitrous oxide gas.