Thank the stars above! We've made it to a much more manageable climate and we're loving it! Once we touched down in Lisbon, it was hot, but not nearly as unbearable as Rome, Venice, or even Prague. It was about 32 degrees, but that very morning in Rome it was 30 degrees with 50% humidity, so while it's technically hotter in Lisbon, we ain't sweating through our clothes anymore, which is always a plus.
The cloister
Mmmmm
(Fun fact, we literally did sweat through all of our clothes in Rome and had them washed in Lisbon. We are overjoyed at having clean clothes again)
The perfect way to start everyday in Lisbon
Comfy hangouts
Goodmorning Hostel, 65 Praça dos Restauradores
Our hostel is absolutely top-notch. The reviews online were stellar, but we finally got to experience it firsthand. First off, amazing staff. They're so nice and helpful and always asking if you need anything. As soon as we walked in the door, one of the staff, Tatiana, gave us a "Welcome home!" and it was then that we knew this place was special. The staff clean your clothes for you for only €6 (AND they fold them, what???), run walking tours, city tours, cocktail/sangria nights, dinners out with the staff,and tapas nights for their travellers, AND make an AMAZING breakfast, which is included with your stay. Now, every other hostel we've stayed at with an included breakfast had minimal offerings: toast, cereal, coffee, and fruit if you're lucky. But at Goodmorning, hell nah. They do. not. mess. around. The online reviews don't lie: their butter-coated, freshly made waffles are to die for. Slather them with some Nutella and I'm pretty sure one could die happy right there and then. Additionally, they whip up fried eggs, grilled paninis with cheese and tomato, cereal, toast, coffee and juice, tomatoes, cucumbers, and apples. And there's always a staff member in there cooking from 8-11am to make sure all the food is fresh! How neat is that??
Tuktuks
I think these nifty little vehicles are actually Thai, but Lisbon seems to be full of them! I never thought I'd be in one, thinking they were for silly tourists who are too lazy to walk, but man, Lisbon is as full of hills and unevenly cobbled streets as it is with tuktuks. For good reason, I suppose. SO, after a particularly long walk up steep inclines to get to Castelo São Jorge (St. George's Castle) one day, we saw the tuktuks all lined up and figured we'd ask how much it would be to get a ride down. At €15, it seemed like an alright deal.
WELL, let me tell you. First, the ride started off smooth. Then, we got stuck behind a tourist van for a few minutes. When we finally got around to it, our driver really let the cobblestones have it. And by this I mean he RIPPED down the narrow streets, turning left and right, honking his little horn, all the while yelling "WOOHOOOO!". He barely slowed town to turn corners, so I thought we were definitely going to flip. These things have a crazy tight turning radius! I wasn't sure whether to be concerned or amused so I alternated between muttering "oh my god" and laughing my head off. Once at the bottom of the hill, the ride was once again smooth, mostly because the streets had more cars in them. But when we hit traffic, he decided to turn and take a side street, nearly hitting pedestrians in the crosswalk as he did so! A few minutes later, we're on the main road, driving more or less in line with typical driving rules. Except when he decided he'd let 'er rip again and tear through a pretty big crosswalk with pedestrians who definitely had the right of way, laying on his horn to clear a path through them. Uhhh, what just happened?!?! Oh, and at one point he didn't want to wait for the light to change, so he just took the area reserved for pedestrians known as the sidewalk. No big deal, right?
The ride was well worth the money, and I hope those pedestrians have recovered from the near-death experiences...though I'm not sure I have.
Belèm
A region within Lisbon that we visited was Belèm, about 20 minutes west of the city center. Hop on the 15E tram from Praça de Figueiro to get first dibs on seats! Day tickets for the metro/bus/tram are only €6 (plus €0,50 for the rechargeable card), so it's well worth it. Plus, you can just go for a few hours, go home, and take transit elsewhere later in the day if you feel like it! Worth noting is that you can only recharge the card once the previous limit has expired. For example, if you buy a 24 hour day ticket, you can't recharge until 24 hours has passed. Confusing and a little difficult, but at least the cards are only €0,50. The tram takes you right to the monastery in Belèm, get off here! You can't miss it.
For €10 we visited the Jerónimos Monastery, which was okay. The architecture and church were absolutely beautiful and it was interesting to walk about the grounds (I think it's called a cloister? Such an odd word...) and a few rooms that the monks used in the monastery's 500 year history. I thought there would be more to see, though. There was a permanent exhibit room that had a timeline of the monastery alongside those of Portuguese and world history, which was really cool. Another room was the tomb of Alexandre Herculano, a prominent Portuguese scholar and intellectual. We also saw the ancient Refectory, which is where monks ate their meals while reading scripture. Lastly, we saw the massive church attached to the monastery, including the upper choir balcony. A few weddings were happening so we didn't want to wait in line to be let in after they were done, but we could see in from the upper balcony just fine. That's pretty much it. I'm not sure what the monastery is used for today (not even Google could give me a good answer), but it must be something or else I'm sure the whole thing would've been open to the public. The place is just huge! All I know is that the monastery was abandoned in 1834 and made secular...further digging to be done, apparently.
After the monastery, we wandered about a minute down the road to Pasteis de Belèm, a renowned bakery famous for their Portuguese custard tarts. The pastry was invented by the monks at the monastery before the 18th century, but when it closed down in 1834, the recipe was sold to a sugar refinery. It was the owners of the refinery who opened up this bakery in 1837 and their descendants still own it today! Evidently, they're still going strong - they sell over 20,000 tarts a day! We waited in line for about 15 minutes before we ordered 6 of these famous pastries to take away and eat in the park across the street. They were delicious - the custard sweet and the pastry crunchy yet also soft. Very different from the dan taat, or egg tarts, back home! After hearing my sister rave about them ever since she was in Portugal years ago, I finally got to have a taste for myself. Nom.
Other than that, we just wandered around Belèm. We saw the Torre de Belèm, but didn't go in. The water is gorgeous and it's a treat to walk along it and get the nice breeze from the ocean, especially on a hot day. Along the way is the massive Discoveries Monument, representing the bow of a ship carrying prominent figures from the 16th century. Belèm (and Portugal) was a major place from which voyaging ships would leave Europe to "discover" new lands abroad. In fact, the main role of the monks at Jerónimos was to pray for the King's eternal soul and for the seafarers' voyages to be successful - they did this for 4 centuries. The monument is beautiful, colonialism aside.
Sintra
Another region under the municipality of Lisbon, Sintra is a half hour away from the city centre (and a return ticket is only €5). Also, unless you want to pay for food at cafés or restaurants, buy snacks from a supermarket in Lisbon and bring them with you! Cheaper and more convenient. In Sintra, we bought tickets for the 434 bus that takes you on a circuit around the place, from the train station, to the Villa, Moorish Castle (Castelo dos Mouros), Palácio da Pena, and back down again. The bus ride itself is a little scary; there are a LOT of switchbacks slog a pretty narrow road, but somehow the bus manages. You can opt to walk up to the sights but it's quite a trek. I recommend only doing so if you're quite fit (and wearing proper footwear).
The Moorish Castle was so. cool. We spent at least an hour and a half wandering the grounds, a good portion of which is free before you have to buy a ticket (only €8). The history is amazing, and you can tell that minimal restoration has occurred, so it all LOOKS quite old, but well taken care of. It's on top of a massive hill in a heavily forested area with giant boulders sticking out everywhere. As I walked through it I definitely got some Rivendell vibes. I was diff in' it. Understandably, it was built and used continously as a lookout post. There are covered areas where there have been archeological finds from the original Muslim inhabitants, artifacts from the Bronze Age, and a Christian necropolis/tombs built all on top of each other. Very cool. As well, you can climb all the way up to various lookout points, but be prepared with comfy shoes. The lookout points were just gorgeous. The castle is built so high up that you get a perfect panorama of the region as well as a nice breeze coming off the ocean. Lisbon itself actually has quite a nice climate so even though it's hot, it's not uncomfortably so and you often get a breeze coming in to make up for it. There are little information points as well along the paths, some of which inform you about the particular piece in front of you. My favourite were the big holes seemingly gouged into the boulders on the ground, used as silos or storage for foodstuffs like grains and legumes from long ago.
You could also go a bit underground, down into where there is still archeological research occurring on a Muslim house built into the fortress, as well as the original cistern that provided fresh water to the fortress since the beginning and never ran dry. There's still water down there, though I'm unsure whether it's from the same water source.
After the castle, we didn't really want to do anything else. The bus also drops you off at the Palaçio de Pena, but it cost €12 to get in and I wasn't up for more walking hahaha. So we continued on until we reached the Villa with all its little shops and restaurants. We wandered a bit through the winding streets, ducking into the odd shop, but we got hungry. There's a lot of restaurants to choose from, and they all have their menus out on display, so take your pick! We chose a place that had codfish and seafood soup (I think it was called Ristorante Taverna or something), which I've been dying to try since we got to Portugal. If you can't tell, I love seafood. The place was nice, service was meh, but the soup was so good! It came in a bread bowl which is always fun. It was full of cod, mussels, shrimp, and possibly other things I missed due to devouring it all. We also ordered the codfish fritters, which were delicious! Crunchy and full of flavour. After that, we hopped back on the bus, caught our train, and headed back home! Easy peasy.
Caparica
We wanted at least one beach day in Lisbon, and we got it! Originally, we were going to go to Cascais, which is where a lot of people go, but we asked Tatiana where the best beach was and she told us that she prefers to go to Caparica, which is southwest instead of west of Lisbon. We bought return tickets for the Beach Bus (coolest bus ever), which had two other stops in town before heading to the beach. The drive was beautiful as we went over the very large Ponte 25 de Abril, a bridge that looks a lot like the Golden Gate in San Fran. The view from the bridge was very pretty, with bright blue waters underneath us!
The bus dropped us off right at the beach and would pick us up in the same spot later in the day. We headed to the beach and a) the sand was beautiful, b) the beach wasn't too crowded, and c) there was a little café/bar where we wild definitely relax later. We set up our blanket and bags reasonably close to the water, slathered ourselves in sunscreen, and laid down to catch some sun for the next few hours. It wasn't too hot because Lisbon has this constant glorious breeze from the water, even in town! Once we did get hot, though, we took to the water. The ice cold water of the Atlantic. There was a whole lot of NOPE from me, but the next few times we went in, it got a lot warmer or at least more bearable (weird). The waves were awesome and it was cool to not have to watch your feet to make sure you didn't step on any barnacle-covered rocks, aka FEET SLICERS. Playing in the waves on a Portuguese beach is definitely my idea of a good way to end a visit to Lisbon.
To end the day, ice cold Somersby ciders and some food to recharge our energy while we waited for the bus to pick us up.
We're just about to check out of this amazing hostel (wah) and get ready for our flight to Barcelona this afternoon! Can't wait to be back in that crazy city :)
Until then!
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