Renovation Project - Optimus Alive 2013, Lisbon, Portugal

Renovation Project - Optimus Alive 2013, Lisbon, Portugal

Well this is it; we are off to the main event of our trip, Optimus Alive 2013, Lisbon portugal. We have been to festivals in Europe for the past 4 years, but his is our first visit to Optimus Alive and we are not camping!!!! We have a luxury hotel for six days.

Hotel Real Oeiras is just fantastic and the staff could not be any more helpful if they tried, the room is just what we need and even has a balcony overlooking the pool. Now this is what we call festivalling in style!!!!

We try the train system from where we are staying, as we are in one of the suburbs, we ask the ticket staff if they speak any English and they reply a little bit, we think this is going to be difficult, until we realise that her idea of a little bit is an understatement, I dread to think what her idea of a lot is! She speaks excellent English and we decide to book a 10 trip ticket this will give us enough tickets to get to the festival everyday and to do some sightseeing (we did realise later in the week that it is more cost effective to buy an unlimited ticket so that you can go further afield).

We are 3 stops from the festival site and decide to go and have a look, I am already feeling so excited, we stop for a drink in a little park near the festival site and get chatting to a waiter who is also going. Apparently we have to queue for our wristband and exchange our tickets on the way in, the first band starts at 5 pm and the ticket offices open at 4 pm, this sounds like it is going to be a disaster.

It is not a disaster and the queues move so smoothly there is hardly any waiting and the main gates that you pass through have a stage high up in them, so there is a DJ playing before you even get into the festival.

The festival site is set out really well with 3 stages and plenty of food courts, we have to recommend the Joshua Shoarma, these kebabs were the best we have had, and they have 19 restaurants across Portugal (if you go, try to find one, you will not be disappointed!). we also have to try one of the Churro’s these are the most disgustingly, sickly food you will ever try, it is like a stick donut filled with melted chocolate, I dare you to eat one without making a mess!

Food aside the festival was ace, every night they gave away different merchandise, t-shirts, scarves, hats and goodness knows what else. I have also decided what I want to be when I grow up, a T shirt shooter!!! One stall would fire t-shirts in the air from a large air gun; this has got to be the best job ever!!!! We also manage to get one each, John from walking along and just reaching up and me from standing out of the way and the gun miss firing straight into my hands!!!

The food and drink were great value, but a big tip is to get what you what when a band is on as there is no queue, and you can still here the band.

For regular festival goers, this is probably one of the most important factors of a festival, the toilets, they were clean and there were enough (there was also toilet roll!!!!!!!!) unless you have been to a big festival you will not understand why this is so important, but believe me it is.

The only downside to the festival was that some bands were on the small stage and they really needed to be on the big stage, one such band was of monsters and men, love them or loathe them (and I love them) were on the small stage and you could not get near it.

The line up was really good and Depeche Mode were absolutely mind-blowing, we managed to dance like idiots all night long.

Leaving the festival was easy, and there were plenty of trains going to all the stops along the line. Once at our stop we just grabbed a taxi to the hotel, during the day this was a nice walk but knackered after a night, the taxi is the best idea.

Each night we met up with the nice Geordies at the taxi stop, though the first night they didn’t realise there was actually a taxi rank until we pointed it out, we managed to do a good deed. But the next night they got there before us, last good deed we do as we had to wait a whole extra minute for the next taxi!

A few mornings we end up having coffee after breakfast with the nice Geordies, so sorry I haven’t got your names but was great to meet you and hope you got home safely, and yes I have added you in the blog as promised, just sorry I have to call you the nice Geordies rather than your actually names, but if you read this you can let me know your names and I will change it, and the offer still stands to come over to France for a visit.