rise & shine, good morning portugal! our plane landed around 9am and as soon as we walked out of the air-conditioned airport we were thrown into 30 ° heat. so good! the only downer was that we'd worn all our warm coats, jumpers & woolen scarfs to save room in our already-over-stuffed packs...so we worked up a sweat just walking the 10m to the bus stop. keeping in mind that we'd slept at the airport in paris the night before... it's not hard to imagine just how gorgeous we were looking right about then.
we arrived in the centre of lisbon and made our way to our hostel. turned out to be more of a challenge than we thought as lisbon is just one continuous hill (up & down & up..& down...&..up & down...). not helped by the fact the whole city is paved with black & white marble cobble-stones that are well-polished after having centuries of feet walking upon them...and are therefore very slippery. undeniably very beautiful though, and definitely a step up from paris' bluestone cobbles. in one of the squares near our hostel, largo de camões, these cobbles form mosaics of moorish ships.
we stayed in bairro alto, the bar district of lisbon. lots of cafés, restaurants, shops & (unsurprisingly) bars line the criss-crossing streets that make up this part of the city. every night the streets came to life, with every possible genre of music floating out into the streets. bairro alto stays wide awake until the early hours of the morning, regardless of whether its a weekday/weekend. was so good to be in this cultural heart of lisbon, even if it was on the top of a hill (bairro alto = "higher ground"). definitely worth the climb, as you get beautiful views out across the city from up there - we saw some amazing sunsets during our time in lisbon.
we spent our days wandering around lisbon in the sun. stopping for cold drinks & fresh fruit at street-side cafés. a highlight was asking for a peach and getting it with a knife & fork - apparently these guys eat their fruit with cutlery!? we thought we'd been given complementary olives & bread... but after thinking that the portuguese were very friendly & generous - we then had to pay for the food we hadn't even ordered. awesome. in all honesty though, the portuguese people are some of the friendliest bunch i've come across during my travels this year. always prepared to help you, give you directions & have a laugh with you.
we had been told by several locals that we had to get out to belém and sample "the most famous portuguese cakes". belém is a small town just outside lisbon, home to pastéis de belém - the cake shop renowned for its custard/cinnamon tart/cake/pastry. as you can probably tell, i still don't really know what the cake was...but it was so tasty. the shop was full of people, and there was a bustling line leading out of the door - all the people lining up to get these famous cakes. i can't believe we only had one each...so restrained!
adeus,
S.
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| beautiful sunsets over lisbon |
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| our hostel |
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| praça do comércio |
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| lisbon taxis |
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| tiled building walls |
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| random mosaics between two buildings |
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| huge apple the size of my face |
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| looking out over the old city of lisbon, alfama |
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| jesus street |
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| bright yellow lisbon trams |
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| care for some pig's ear salad? otherwise there's always one of our snail dishes... |
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| the non-complimentary olives... |
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| eating fruit with a knife & fork |
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| they made us pay for the bread, so we wrapped up what was left and took it with us |
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| "living statues" |
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| busy queues waiting for cakes |
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| so excited for my portuguese cake! |
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| sprinkled with icing sugar and cinnamon... |
