Portugal (Lisbon) - April, 2011

The most important stopover in our Portugal roadtrip is Lisbon. We stayed over at our good friends Ana and Miguel's place, and spent 2 days exploring this great city.

When we first arrived in Lisbon, we entered the city through Marquês de Pombal, a beautiful square in the middle of the city. In fact, later we leanrt that our friends Ana and Miguel live just nearby, and we passed by this square many times during our 3 days in Lisbon.

From Marquês de Pombal, we followed a long road with trees all along it to go to Baixa, the old city center. We parked the car, and walked around the old city center. We saw beautiful squares, paved streets, antique shops, and eventually arrived at the riverside. There was a beautiful palace built along the river, from there, you can sit down at the stairway and look at the river quietly flowing away.

After Baixa, we went back to Marquês de Pombal and united with our friends. In the evening we went to Bairro Alto, a beautiful neighbourhood on top of a little hill nearby Baixa to have dinner. We walked around a bit to see the bird view of Lisbon, and I got drunk over a 50-cent Sangria. We went to a recommended restaurant. It is small, with only about 15 seats. We had to wait for half an hour to get a table since there is no reservation, but we had great seafood there. Especially, the appetizer, steamed clams, was extremely delicious. After dinner, we walked around the neighbouhood and had a drink in a bar nearby. The neighbourhood has a great atmosphere, a lot of young people, tourists, and music. In the bar where we went to, the European football league match is playing, and naturally, people were divided into Real Mardid vs. Barcelona supporters.

In our second day in Portugal, we went back to the old city and walked around Alfama. It is a Moorish neighbourhood. It is heavily concentrated on the hills (Lisbon is very hilly and there are lots of ups and downs). It was built like a maze, with lots of narrow streets, dark corners. It is extremely difficult to navigate, and we got completely lost.

After Alfama, we joined Ana and Miguel for a family brunch. We met at least 30 of their family members, and really enjoyed the conversation and the food. I even received a gift as a surprise from Miguel's mom, and was really happy about it.

In the afternoon, we went to Belem. It is a bit far outside of the city, but a very important historical site. There were the famous monastry, Belem castle, and the tower. Belem was in an very open area, with lots of grass, flowers, etc. We first visited the monastry. Unfortunately it was closed for visiting, but even the outside of the monastry was stunning. It is carefully decorated with carved religious figures. We then walked along the river and visited the tower and the castle. The castle was built at a spot where the river was merging with the sea. So when we walked along the river, we start to smell the smell of sea. The distances between Monastry and the riverside was quite far, and we were both extremely tired after the visit. I whined about how Alex always forces me to walk for so long, so he carried me for 50 meters...^^

Since we were in Belem, we couldn't miss the very famous Pastéis de Nata, since it is a local product. We lined up in a pastry for half an hour, and had this amazing desert! (Also called egg tart and can be easily found anywhere in Chinatown if you don't know what that is...) The real Pastéis de Nata is very different from the Chinatown eggtart. You eat it when it is hot, and the dough is much more crispy. You also pour cinnemon and sugar power onto it before you eat, so the flavour is much more sweet than the egg tart.

We returned to Portugal in the evening, and joined some other friends for dinner at a Portugese restaurant. This time, the cuisine was from the islands of Portugal, and was much more difficult to recognize than what we normally had.

Our very last day in Portugal, we visited a palace recommended by Alex's parents. It is in the middle of a park, and it had beautiful gardens with china tiles painted with beautiful patterns. It was quiet and the entire tour was conducted in French, but we really enjoyed this old palace.

From there, our Lisbon tour ended. Although the two days were intense and completely packed with activities, we still haven't finished exploring Lisbon fully. We enjoyed the company of friends and great food in Lisbon, and hope to return here in the near future!