Portugal

Bom dia!

Hey everyone! So Steph and I decided to treat ourselves to at least one big weekend away while we were abroad. Unfortunately, the flights to Paris are really expensive this time of year (surprise, surprise…), so instead we booked flights to Lisbon! I had heard from many of my fellow study abroad friends that Lisbon was one of their favorite destinations, so we were really excited.

We left Thursday afternoon, and arrived in Lisbon, where all the words were unfamiliar. We couldn’t speak it, but we could read it, because the language seems to be a strange combination of Spanish, Italian, and French, with a few variations.

We checked into the Lisbon Lounge Hostel. This boutique hostel had more of a hotel atmosphere, and is rated one of the top 3 hostels in the whole world for 2009. The hostel had a resident-chef, Petro, who made divine Portuguese meals for us during our stay. The hostel itself was decorated with a lot of quirky art, such as chandeliers designed from plastic cups.

Our first day, we just settled in, and walked around a bit to get the feel of the place.

We had a nice dinner at an open-air restaurant over looking the city.

The view from out table

It was nice to be by the Atlantic, because there was a lot more air circulation than we’re used to. We stayed in the Baixa-Chiado neighborhood, and down the main thoroughfare, Rua Augusta, is a giant arch.

On Friday, we decided it was that time of the year to hit the beach. We jumped on a train out of the city to the coast. We stopped at Tamariz Beach in Estoril, a little resort town about 30 minutes outside of Lisbon. We literally stepped off the train and into the sand; it was so nice.

The weather was beautiful as well, so we sunbathed near an old Monaco castle.

We had a fabulous time!

Later that evening, we took part in a free wine tasting hosted by Portugal’s Ministry of Agriculture. We had the opportunity to try 6 wines from 3 different regions of the country. Some were good, some not so much, but it was a fun experience. That evening we had family dinner at the hostel with Chef Petro, and got to meet and chat with the other guests at the hostel. After dinner, Chef Antonio, from the Living Lounge Hostel (our hostel’s affiliate), took everyone from the two hostels out for the night. Chef Antonio showed us all the Lisbon hot-spots and even bought drinks for us, such a nice guy!

The next morning, Steph and I, along with every other tourist who has ever picked up a Rick Steves guide, took the #28 tram for a “tour” of the city. It was PACKED, so we didn’t really see that much of the city, but it was a nice break from the rain outside.

Lisbon seems a lot like San Francisco with all of its steep hills. Besides the trams, the city has a LOT of stairs, and even elevators to get from the lower city to the upper city.

Later that afternoon, we took tram #15 out to the neighborhood of Belem, famed for its monastery. There must have been some kind of school event going on, because there were uniformed school kids everywhere, so we took advantage of the opportunity to slip into the cathedral unnoticed. The cathedral was pretty cool. We liked the un-orthodox architecture.

Within the cathedral, the famous explorer Vasco da Gama is buried.

Yep, that's him!

We moved on from the monastery to the brand-new Modern Art museum. It’s so new that all of the artworks haven’t even been installed yet! After taking a gander at all the weird and cool art, we found a great view of some interesting monuments of Lisbon:

Something modern, the Monument to the Discoveries, and is that the Golden Gate Bridge?!

After gazing at the Golden Gate Bridge, we headed over to the real reason we came to Belem, the famous bakery. The bakery, called Pasteis de Belem, is named after it’s most famous pastry.

The pastry is a custard tart that you sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon. There was a line out of the door and down the street to try these sacred cakes: sacred, because the pastry comes from an old, secret recipe used by the monks at the monastery. Only 3 people in the whole world know the secret. For only 90 eurocents, they were pretty divine cakes alright. We caught the tram back into Lisbon, and still had hours to kill before our 9pm dinnertime! The Portuguese run on such a different time-schedule than us! So to pass by the time, we stopped for a pre-dinner aperatif at a Portuguese wine-bar near our hostel. It started pouring rain just as we were leaving, so we ran back to the hostel, trying not to slip on the tiles that pave the streets! Once again, we had dinner with Chef Petro: a Portuguese twist on a classic Italian lasagna, and once again, it was delicious.

Happy and full!

I went upstairs for a power nap before we went out to Lisbon’s most famous club, Lux Bar, but I didn’t wake up for my 1am alarm...European nightlife just starts too late for me! So, Stephanie decided to go along with out me, with some of our new friends from the hostel. The next morning, which for Steph was still night-time, we packed our bags, and ran out the door to catch our 9am flight to Barcelona!

After going to Lisbon to see what all the commotion was about, we decided it was definitely a sight to see, but just couldn’t quite match up with Barcelona.

We advise all our readers that they should watch the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona before reading our next posts!