I left my heart in...Lisboa

San Francisco? Rio? Lisbon!

I'm not really sure why, but I love Lisbon. I think it's really Portugal in general that I love, actually. It's just a really beautiful country, the people are nice (and they speak English!), the food is awesome, and it's a great and super easy place to go to get away from Spain for a little bit. I haven't seen a ton of Portugal, but among the cities that I have been to (which are all quite different, by the way), Lisbon is my favorite. There are so few cities in the world that I've visited that I think I could actually live in, and Lisbon is one of them. But anyway, back on track. Back at

Just look at it!

the end of April/very beginning of May I had a five-day weekend, and I figured, let's go back to Lisbon. I spent three days there back in December, one of which spent in Sintra, a magical little town about half an hour away from the capital. So really we were only in Lisbon for two days, and even though there's not a ton to see in Lisbon, it wasn't enough (not to mention, the weather on the last day was pretty bad; it down poured most of the morning). This time I dragged Maddie with me (although dragged is a bit of an exaggeration, because she's been asking to go back since we left). We spent five days in Portugal - two or so in Lisbon, two in Sintra, and about half a day in Cascais, a pretty little beach town less than an hour from Lisbon. And while I'm now going to hold off returning to Lisbon for a third time for a while, I would still love to go back.

On the first day that Maddie and I were in Lisbon, we took the tram to the neighborhood Belem to see the Jeronimos Monastery, which is mostly famous for its beautiful cloisters, and the Torre de Belem. Belem is a bit of a ways from the center of Lisbon - probably about a half hour ride on

Madds & me, Torre de Belem

the tram, what with all the stops it makes, and on the way back another American decided to strike up conversation with us. This guy had been living in Russia for something like ten years now, and clearly it was getting to him. One of the first things he said to us was, "Lisbon is so awful. This city is shit. I don't know why people come here." Luckily Maddie will talk to anyone, because I really wasn't too enthusiastic too dignify his comments with a response. I guess his life story was, from Detroit (that's perhaps saying something right there about his views on nice cities), living in Russia for a while, doing some sort of PhD research there, was visiting Lisbon because his wife or girlfriend or whoever the girl was with him had some sort of conference she had to attend there. The only places in Europe that he likes are Poland and Croatia. And Andalucia in Spain. Come on, dude, get over yourself. I'm not necessarily a big fan of the cliche European cities that Americans always visit; Paris is just ok, and I'm in no rush to visit Rome or really anywhere in Italy. (I admit, London is pretty damn awesome though.) But there are lots of beautiful cities in western Europe, Lisbon included.

Torre de Belem

Cloisters of the Jeronimos Monastery.

Anyway, after that bizarre conversation, Maddie and I spent the next two days in Sintra. I'm going to write a separate post about Sintra - but rest assured, it was awesome. So after our sad departure from Sintra, we got back to Lisbon and did some walking around Lisbon at night. Finally by this point Maddie was able to stay awake past 9 pm (really, though, she got accustomed to the time difference pretty quickly, especially considering how much sightseeing I made her do on her first few days here). We did a little exploring around the Bairro Alto, or the Upper District, one of the hilliest neighborhoods of Lisbon, had some awesome Portuguese food in a tiny family owned restaurant recommended to us by the people in the hostel in Sintra, and listened to some of the many street musicians that are so common in Portugal (and Spain). I wanted to upload a video of said street performers, but blogger for some reason won't let me, so I'll have to try it in a separate post.

The next day we originally planned to go to Evora, a town known for its Roman ruins, a Roman temple in particular. However, this day was a holiday and apparently many of Portugal's tourist sights close down on holidays. Stupid. So instead of taking a two-hour bus ride both there and back and running the risk of not being able to go inside anything in Evora, we took the train to Cascais, a pretty little beach/fishing town not too far away. Obviously at the beginning of May we weren't exactly looking to go swimming, but we walked around the small town, saw a boatload of boats, and took a long walk along the coast to the Boca do Inferno (Hell's Mouth), which is a deep chasm in the cliffs along the ocean.

Cliffs near Cascais

Boca do Inferno

I'm betting that during tourist season, Cascais is not the place to be (well, unless you're looking for a place overrun by tourists), but at the beginning of May it wasn't too busy, and the scenery was still beautiful. And despite there not being a whole lot to do or see there, it's another nice little getaway from the hustle and bustle of big city life. We ended the day with this great seafood stew that was really like nothing I'd ever had before, mainly because it was thickened (a lot) with breadcrumbs. It was bizarre, but in a good way. Maddie still has an ongoing obsession with said stew - one that I don't see ending any time soon, and rightfully so.

Our last day in Lisbon was a rainy one. Actually it was worse than a rainy day - it was one of those days that goes back and forth between heavy rain and no rain at all. You try to be grateful for the

Igreja do Carmo, or what remains of it after the 1755 earthquake.

no-rain parts of the day, but you can't help but get frustrated by having to take out and open your umbrella, close your umbrella once the rain stops, carry it around because it's too wet to put away, finally put it away because it's finally dry enough, and then BOOM it starts raining again. It's a vicious, watery cycle. Aaaanyway, we tried to spend the day at places inside, but there actually aren't a whole lot of sights that are completely inside. First we went to Igreja do Carmo, which was a church that was turned into an archaeological museum after an earthquake destroyed a lot of it in the 1700s. Sadly, the part of the museum that's inside is small, and the rest is the structure of the church, sans roof. But well worth the visit either way.

View of Lisbon from the fortress/castle.

Next we moved on to the cathedral of Lisbon, which actually wasn't majorly impressive. But it was inside, so that counts for something. Our last sight was the castle on one of Lisbon's biggest hills, overlooking the entire city. Not inside at all, but it had stopped raining by this point in the afternoon. We ended the day with a bit more walking around and enjoying the pretty Portuguese architecture, complete with a nice relaxing break from the hectic sightseeing for yummy Portuguese pastries. I've probably said it before, but Portugal has awesome pastries.

And thus ended our trip to Portugal. Boo. But then it was time to show Maddie what Spain is like, so yay for that! Great trip(s) overall, and I think she had a good time as well.