Lisbon

Officially time to slow down. We spent four nights here, the most in one place so far, and we could have done four more. Lisbon is a vibrant city. Lots to do.

We arrived to the city on the afternoon bus and got settled into our hostel quickly. We met some roommates, two friends from England, Ben and Alex, and an Australian squad, Matt, Sam, Tom and Will. These friends provided us great company while in the hostel, having dinner together, or a quick chat about the day near the end. It was nice to have enough time in one place to form proper short term friendships with people, instead of one chat and never seeing them again.

We took off for an afternoon explore to grab some groceries and see the sights. The waterfront was our first destination. It quickly became apparent that Lisbon has the best busker scene of any city we have been to. A squad of university choir guys were performing. There was a trash percussion duo with an audience as well. The waterfront of the Tagus river had a large promenade to wander along. Sand and rock installations were made along the way, with their artists standing by to take donations. A group of men were shoring the sand wall to protect their creations.

Eventually we found what we thought we were looking for, the Time Out Market. This market is curated to have a bunch off quality Lisbon restaurants in one place. Its super tourist trappy, as the prices there were unreasonably high. Nearby pink street was the same as well, just one specific spot for the instagrammable photo, and nothing else.

There was trouble in finding a regular grocery store for us, so we ended up as a Whole Foods equivalent. After wandering the store for 20 minutes planning, a menu of pasta and curry was created for the evenings. The dishes we ended up making is Lisbon were quite lovely, much to the jealousy of the Aussie boys who would have lettuce, chorizo and pesto sandwiches every day.

We then went for a night out! There was a little bar strip of 15-20 small clubs. Hosts outside will try to entice you in with free shots, so we made our rounds on all of those, had a boogie, and went back early. Also got offered a lot of drugs. That was a bit of a shock.

We started our first full day heading out for a long walk to two produce markets. They were quite underwhelming, and one was half empty. We bought a quiche that had cod in it, and developed a quick hatred of fish pastries. This proved to be a problem, as one of the touristic have to try it foods is a cheesy cod fritter. We did not try it.

We did have a lot of pastel de nata’s. These are little tarts filled with a custard, and are really lovely. We took a cooking class to make them in Porto, and that was good fun. Portuguese pastries are on another level. They are definitely our favorites in Europe. But cause of the cod, the rule of thumb is don’t buy anything where you can’t see the filling.

For the afternoon, we wandered around the historic Alfama district. This neighborhood is on a hill face between a castle and a river. The walking only streets are filled with different shops and viewpoints that come out of hiding after every corner. There are lots of stalls of ladies selling Ginja, a cherry liquor that you take out of a chocolate shot cup. They were so fun, we had four in the span of about 15 minutes, then we realized we were feeling it. We tried a pastel de nata liquor as well. That was very sweet, but quite good.

Meandering through the viewpoints, we stumbled upon the final minutes of a flea market. Books, trinkets and clothes were all being packed up to go home. There was a craft market open nearby, so we checked that out. Cam got a ring, and I made jokes with a shopkeeper drinking a beer. A dog park was in the vicinity as well, so we watched a shepherd try to make friends with all the other dogs, and repeatedly get ignored by them all. The dogs were good fun.

We finally made it to the top of the hill at the castle with help form an escalator. Here was a lovely viewpoint of the center of Lisbon and all of its hills. We didn’t feel the need to go in, as we had other castles in Sintra planned in a couple days. Telling the Aussie boys about the escalator was quite funny, as they were complaining about the walk up the night before.

While walking back to the hostel, we found a boxing ring with a fighter being declared the victor. It was the final fight of the night unfortunately. Beside it though was another market selling food and wares. We spent too much money on various sausages, and this was the first food gamble we took that somewhat paid off. Cam couldn’t handle the textures, but past that there was a lot of Mediterranean and Moroccan spice in them. It was a nice evening snack.

The next day we took a day trip to Belem. This is an outskirt of Lisbon, with a few famous old buildings, a scenic riverfront, a lot of sun, and a famous pastel de Belem tart. The train there was quick and easy. We walked by a cool old crane, a couple war monuments, the Tower of Belem, and a monastery. Lovely sightseeing, but nothing much more than that. We spent some time chilling in the park, only to learn the grass made both of us itch.

The pastel de Belem is the original pastel de nada. Due to some sort of legal chaos, there are different names. Same kind of tart though. The pastry was more burnt and flaky, and the inside less sweet. We preferred these ones more, and crushed three each in quick success

Our third full day in Lisbon was spent on a day trip to Sintra, which a was a spectacular day. That will be its own blog in the near future.

Lisbon overall is a fantastic city. There is a small town vibrancy to the whole city. It felt like it was in its infancy for tourism, and in 5-10 years it will become a lot more of a hub. The most exciting part about it though was the buskers. Near the waster there was the University of Porto choir, the trash percussionists, and many various 20 something’s with guitar. We saw a full trio play covers one day. One evening we saw a hip hop dance show, which culminated in a dancer doing a flip over three women before jumping into my arms.

We would love to come back, though this is the first city that we felt satisfied in what we did there. Off north now for our last European stop this year! See you there!