San Francisco Meets Europe: Lisbon

Olá! I knew that during my semester in Spain I wanted to try and take a trip somewhere in Portugal. I felt like I’d be able to travel to Europe again sometime in the future, but I didn’t know if visiting Portugal would be first on my list, so I figured the best time would be when I was already in its neighboring country! I had heard great things about Lisbon, and knew other people who had traveled there, so my friend, Ashley, and I decided to go.

We figured out that taking a bus from Sevilla was the easiest and cheapest way to get there. The trip takes seven hours by bus, and there’s an afternoon trip and an overnight trip. We took the afternoon trip on the way there, and arrived at about 9:45PM. (Side note: on the way to Lisbon, we drove on the Vasco da Gama Bridge, which is the longest bridge in Europe!) We took the metro from the bus station to our hostel, as the hostel was in the city center, while the Sete Rios bus station was pretty far out of the way. The hostel we chose was called Goodmorning Hostel Lisbon, and was very nice. We had read online that it had been voted one of the best hostels in the world by the Hostelbookers website, so we figured it would be fun. They have free drinks, a very nice breakfast included (waffles!), and the staff all spoke amazing English and were very helpful with travel planning and recommendations. Oh! That’s another thing that was interesting: everyone spoke English. Like, obviously they spoke Portuguese, and sure, we were in more touristy areas, but everyone spoke very good English. We thought we might have to try and use our Spanish since they’re somewhat similar languages, but it wasn’t necessary! A lot of signage was in Portuguese and English! So for us, it was perfect! Though I did pick up a few words here and there, like, “obrigada” (“thank you.”)

The next morning we walked through the city a bit and saw the Praça dos Restauradores and the Praça do Rossio, then headed to take a streetcar over to the Belém area of town.

Belém is home to the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, a monastery that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The monastery was built between 1501 and 1601 and is a great example of Portuguese Gothic architecture.

We walked more around the Belém area to see the Ponte 25 de Abril, a suspension bridge that spans the Tejo river. Its coloring and style are very similar to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, so it’s fun to see. Across the river you can see the Cristo Rei statue, which was inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

We also saw the Padrão dos Descrobrimentos, a monument dedicated to Portuguese discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Tejo river was where ships departed to travel all over the world during Portugal’s height of power as an empire.

Nearby is another part of Lisbon’s UNESCO World Heritage Site: the Torre de Belém. This is a fortified tower that served as a defensive point, as well as represented the gateway to Lisbon.

Before taking the tram back to downtown Lisbon, we stopped at the Pasteis de Belém bakery to try pastel de nata, an egg tart pastry that’s eaten with cinnamon sugar. Yum!

We visited the beautiful Praça do Comércio, which has beautiful stone structures and colorful yellow buildings. We then walked up the Rua Augusta to have some lunch. A lot of buildings in Lisbon seem to be relatively newer compared to other old cities like Sevilla. I think this might have to do with the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which almost completely destroyed Lisbon. (The earthquake was so bad that buildings in distant Spanish cities were damaged!) Because much of the city was destroyed in the earthquake, the city had to be rebuilt, so the buildings are “younger” than they would have been had the earthquake not occurred.

I really wanted to ride in a streetcar, so we got tickets for the Elevador da Glória and went up to one of the city’s famous viewpoints, the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara.

For dinner, we tried bacalao (codfish), and thankfully we had been warned about what many Portuguese restaurants do: they’ll place bread, butter, and other appetizers on the table, but they’re not free! In the menu they have the prices listed, but they only charge you if you actually eat it! Tricky. But the food was good! After dinner we tried ginjinha, a cherry liqueur that’s served in a tiny chocolate cup!

The next day, we decided to take a day trip to the nearby town of Sintra, Portugal. Sintra is a beautiful small town that is home to several royal estates, castles, and palaces. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site! We took the train to get to Sintra, which takes about 45 minutes or so. Because all of the palaces are spread out atop mountains, we actually decided to buy tickets for one of the cheesy hop-on, hop-off sightseeing busses. I think this was a good decision, since we were able to visit all of the palaces we wanted to in Sintra, and more!

We first went to the Quinta da Regaleira, an estate that felt like something out of a fairy tale. The land was originally owned by the Barons of Regaleira, but was sold to a millionaire, Carvalho Monteiro in 1892. Monteiro made a lot of additions to the property that made it as romantic and beautiful as it is today. There’s a beautiful palace, a chapel, and a large park that has secret wells, tunnels, fountains, and more.

One of the reasons we liked the sightseeing bus we chose was because it also took us out to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe! This is a beautiful place with amazing views that almost don’t seem real, since the ocean seems to go on forever.

We then stopped to visit the Palácio Nacional da Pena. This palace is a colorful (literally) mix of several architectural styles, including Neo-Gothic, Neo-Islamic, and Neo-Renaissance. This makes for a very eclectic look. This palace was the most expensive place we visited, so we opted to only pay to view the “terraces”, meaning we were able to walk through the gardens up the hill to the palace and explore its patios and the chapel, but we couldn’t go inside. I think this was a good choice, though, since from what we could tell through the windows, the outside was the best part! We had a good time.

After that, we took the bus back to the town and tried a yummy dessert called travesseiros. The dessert’s name means “pillows”, probably because the pastry looks a lot like a tiny, fluffy pillow! haha.

We made it back to Libson on the train, spent some time relaxing at the hostel, and then headed back to the bus station. We had some difficulties because the bus station didn’t have our bus listed on the boards (!) but we found someone who spoke English and Portuguese and he assured us that we were in the right place. We took the overnight bus back to Sevilla and arrived very early in the morning, around 5AM. The next day I had class and I was very tired, but I think it was worth it! I really enjoyed visiting another country, and I found Lisbon to be a beautiful place with a lot of fun things to see. My friend, who is from California, described it as “Old World Europe meets San Francisco”, and that sounds about right to me!

The next weekend, I went with several of my friends to see Granada!! More on that in my next post.

Adeus!