the best part about lisbon: WARM!
i had never realized how cold europe was until my spring break trip. when i landed in lisbon i was so happy to be hit with 72 and sunny weather! the first day we wandered around and checked into our hostel which had a working disco ball in it! excellent! we went and got beers on a terrace that overlooked the river and people just sat in the grass all around relaxing. since lisbon doesnt have an actual beach, many people just park themselves in the grass and lay out in the sun.
That night we wandered around to barrio alto which is a famous group of streets that wind all around the top of a hill. there is no open container law in lisbon so people just pop into small bars for a "to-go" beer (the beer of choice seemed to be superbock) and just walk around and hang out in the streets, much like new orleans. we grabbed dinner at a small resturaunt and i tried sardines for the first time, yum! we walked around with the locals and ended up in a really cool music venue to see some more live music. the guy was from london and playing a new kind of music where you record one rift of the song, record it to a pedal, and layer the different rifts throughout the song to make it sound like your playing with a band, cool!
the next day we decided to take a train to sintra which is about 30 min away. it was beautiful and there were several castles in the town. we climbed to one and then took a bus to the top that almost costed us our lives due to the bus drivers crazy driving! when we got there it was worth it though and we spent the day wandering through the kings summer palace wishing it was ours. after we had enough we walked down the mountain and headed toward the bus station. there we hopped on a 45 min bus to cabo de roca, the western most point of europe. This would have been an amazing place to catch sunset, which we had planned to do. unfortunately due to all the warm weather we didnt anticipate that it might be a bit chilly. It was so windy and cold that we took our pictures and headed inside to look at the scenery from the bar until the next bus came.
That night we decided to check out some fado which is the traditional folk music of portugal. It's usually two or three guys playing a guitar with a girl singing sad love songs, and its usually done over dinner. We went to a place recomended by our hostel, and after several wrong turns down windy hilly streets, we found it and sat down just in time for them to shut the big wooden doors to turn the small resturaunt into an ampitheatre. The girls voice was unbelievable and the guitar was very beautiful. later that night we went to a cafe called cafe a brasileira do chiado. we got some port and espresso there and talked at the cafe counter till we decided to call it a night.
The next day we woke up had a late start and were going to spend the day wandering around when i realized i had missed my flight! it was 8am instead of 8pm...nice jen! so around 4 i went to the airport to wait with my friends for their flights (we booked diff flights). we hung outside at the airport and actually had a lot of fun!
I headed back to the hostel by myself and decided to have the group dinner that the hostel offered for 8 euros. We got soup, salad, and a great pasta dish, some of the best food i'd had in my travels! We had more than enough wine and port to drink which made meeting and talking to my fellow travelers a breeze! i stayed up till 1 or so talking with some of the most interesting people i had met, one girl a travel writter for frommers, and headed to bed instead of joining the crowd for another night out in lisbon, i couldn't miss my flight!!!
i am so glad i got to get to portugal while i was here, it was warm which made wandering the streets fun and exciting. the scenery was beautiful and id love to come back someday!
