Lisboa

Last Friday I embarked on my Spring Break adventure! Our first stop: Lisbon. None of us really knew anything about Lisbon or Portugal in general; it was kind of a wild card destination. I also do not know a lick of Portuguese, but amongst us we had a few years of Spanish, French, Latin and our knowledge of Italian so we hoped that maybe we could get by.

Friday was super hectic because (of course) I left a lot of things to the last minute! But you’d be impressed to know that I fit everything necessary to survive for a week in ONE BAG under the measurements of 20x40x55 CENTIMETERS (some of the airlines we flew had super fussy guidelines, and I didn’t want to pay to check a bag). But we successfully made it to the airport, through security, onto the plane and into Lisbon all in one piece. A bus from the airport took us right to the street that our hostel was on, smack dab in the center of the city. The hostel itself was extremely nice, free breakfast, free laundry service, and for 6 euros they’d make you a huge meal for dinner!

(stole these pics from Sally)

After getting settled everyone staying in the hostel went out to Bairro Alto. It’s basically a hill (like Rome, Lisbon has 7 hills too) with a ton of bars, clubs, and restaurants. The streets are steep, narrow, cobble-stoned, and PACKED with people. It was really nice because we could walk there without worrying about public transportation. Lisbon in general was a very walkable city, which added to its charm and is one of the reasons why I loved it so much. Saturday morning we had to wake up early to meet our tour group. My friend told me about this tour company called We Hate Tourism Tours. The tour was AMAZING and I’m so glad we did it because it was more of the area around Lisbon, places that we would never have seen had we tried to do it on our own. Plus it was just 8 of us in the group, so it was nice and small and personal. Way better than being carted around on a bus in a gigantic group with lots of other people.

The tour:


Our first stop was Sintra, a small little town outside the city. We stopped to get pastries and hot chocolate in a cute little café. One of the pastries is called a “travesseiro” which literally means “pillow” in Portuguese. Next we went to Quinta da Regaleira, which our tour guide described as a mix between Lord of the Rings and Disneyland. It was beautiful.


A really rich guy built this palace and the grounds for himself in the early 20th century. There was a waterfall, ponds, castle-y structures, a greenhouse, and an awesome inverted tower. It was basically a little kid’s dream! It reminded me of when I used to play in Melina’s “rock garden” in elementary school: just a lot cooler and HUGE!


After that we went to a small roadside market where we ate lunch. We ate at a foodtruck, (right up our alley, since we all go to Temple!) and we had this type of sandwich: bread baked fresh on site, with churizo inside. It was delicious!


After lunch we went to Cabo da Roca, the most westerly point in Europe. I sent some kisses to the states! It was basically a gigantic cliff, right on the ocean. It was absolutely stunning. Looking back on the pictures now, it seems so unreal that I was there! It was also super duper windy there. From there we went to Guincho Beach. I took my shoes off immediately! It was so good to feel the sand and the water. I love the beach!!!! After hanging out on the beach for awhile we were on the hunt for more food. We went to Cascais, (pronounced “cash-kye”) a coastal town with a nice beach, and got ice cream at a little parlour called Santini. I got mango and raspberry, it literally tasted like I was just eating a mango and raspberries (they use fresh fresh fresh fruit!)

It was a long day.

To wrap up the day we went to an area of Lisbon called Belém and sat on the river for a little bit. They have a bridge that looks just like the San Francisco bridge! The same engineers actually designed/built it. But down there they had a huge monument for all the explorers from Portugal because it used to be the port where they all set off from. Then we saw a monastery (I’m kind of over churches at this point) and we had these delicious pastries, called “Pastéis de Belém” (which means pastries of Belem) but they tasted like rice pudding, in a warm pastry! They have them all over Lisbon, but we ate the originals. If you want to drool some more: http://www.pasteisdebelem.pt/en.html


Our last stop was the Thieves Market. Unfortunately it was the end of the day so most of the vendors were closing down. Also, in Rome we have the largest flea market in Europe (seriously, its HUGE!! I’ve been twice already) so I wasn’t too impressed.

But all in all it was such a great day! If my commentary and pictures aren’t enough, check out their website! http://wehatetourismtours.com/ It’s really neat.