Portugal: Lisbon

It's pretty intimidating to come back to the blog after an entire week, especially such a crazy week. Let me just say: I love Portugal. It's beautiful. I think I'll break this up into two blogs (or I guess three if you count the last one), one for Lisbon and one for Porto, as much for my own good as for your attention spans.

To begin with, the first stretch of travel was a nightmare. Five hour bus ride to Madrid, metro ride to the airport, flight to Porto, three and a half hour bus to Lisbon. We were zombie creatures by the end, so we mostly wrote and napped and chatted by the time we made it to our hostel.

Day two in Lisbon, we woke up to freshly baked croissants and tea, part of the free hostel breakfast and we decided to explore Belem, a well known area. We visited the Jeronimos Monastery, stopped in at a little nautical museum and took ridiculous photos, stopped by the Discoveries Monument, which naturally, we had to climb, and then took a look at the Belem Tower.

 Monastery!

 Monument climbing!

 Monument. You can see Lisbon's version of the Golden Gate in the background...That was extremely weird to see.

Tower of Belem.



Ordinary buildings.

The whole day was kind of leisurely and exploratory. We kept stumbling upon all the monuments we were hoping to see, taking our time, being goofy and having a blast. Everything was so beautiful, from the monuments to the ordinary buildings and there was street art everywhere. After looking around at these we were starving so we stopped and got felafel, and then headed back towards the hostel. On the way we stopped at a free museum we'd heard about in the hostel; the museum of fashion and design which we loved. It was arranged chronologically, and related historical events, inventions, people, etc, to the evolution of design. There were no photos allowed, but we saw all sorts of fascinating clothing and furniture and whatnot. My favorite part was all the quotes they had from designers, talking about their philosophy of design and fashion, form and function, pushing boundaries, etc. Afterwards, of course, we did a little shopping. I got myself a jacket, which turned out to be extremely necessary and very useful due to it's extra large hood, which could roll down and become my public-transport-sleeping-cave.

Street art.

After noticing the Golden Gate 2.0, I kept feeling like Lisbon was an old, decaying San Francisco. It just had that feeling, especially with all the little trolleys.

That night we made gin and tonics in the hostel and then went out with some Americans and our new Canadian friend, Rebecca, this awesome spunky 18-year-old who was traveling around for like seven months alone, meeting up with friends in different places. We went to Bairro Alto, the area known for it's bars and nightlife and had a few drinks. The night seemed to be coming to an end but we ran into an extremely inebriated Australian that was obsessed with his own beard, and we ended up causing a ruckus with him and his friends. He was ridiculous and had "Your Name" tattooed on his ass (yes, he showed us) but came in handy when some random guy came up to Leah and I, put his arms around us and proclaimed, "You're coming home with me tonight." All in all a hilarious evening.

Inebriated Australian, self, Rebecca.

The next day we got a late start (well, Leah and I did; Courtney managed to get up early and go to a sweet flea market that I'm sad I didn't make it to.) We decided to take a day trip to Sintra, a nearby town known for it's fairytale-like castles and palaces. We'd been told that you only really have time to visit one of the amazing sights, and we chose Palacio da Pena which was incredible. The palace was up a big forested hill, which we bussed and then walked up. It was one of the few tourist spots that we actually decided to pay and enter, so we got to marvel at all the insane themed rooms and spent a lot of time talking about how short their beds were. Luxurious, but short. It was also evening time and up on the hill, especially outside, it was REALLY fucking cold. I kind of thought my ears were going to fall off. But it was definitely worth the money, and really did feel like a crazy surreal fairytale palace. The view from up there was breathtaking.

That night, Leah, Rebecca and I were rather sleepy, so we opted out of going out and went for hot chocolate and pastries, or in my case, a baked apple with cinnamon. Honestly, a lot of this trip was defined by the food. Aside from the saucewiches (francesinhas) we had in Porto, we made some awesome meals in the hostel to save money: pasta with fresh veggies, vegetable and tofu stirfry with garlic, ginger and soy sauce, and grilled cheese with tomatoes and a fried egg and onion soup. Also, Portugal turned out to be FULL of tasty pastries that we just couldn't resist. The Portuguese are extreme fond of egg-cream, and are famous for their pasteis de nata, these little custard tarts that are served with cinnamon. Delicious.

Sunday we had a bus back to Porto at 5, so we had time to do a little more sightseeing. Rebecca came along with us to find a mirador (basically a plaza with a dope view). We opted to follow the tram tracks and take our time meandering through the beautiful old buildings instead of riding the tram. It was a wonderful tranquil day, wandering through the Alfama neighborhood, which is known for it's crumbling melancholy beauty, and the whole thing was enhanced by the moody clouds. The view did not disappoint, we sat for a long while and just took in the city.

To be continued...