So at the beginning of March, which is now almost a month ago (pinch, punch, first of the month...) Celia and I went to visit Eric in Lisbon. Yeah!
Check out some of my photos on my flickr and on facebook.
Despite the weather forecast, we continued to believe that we were headed for a sunny, breezy beach vacation.
This was not the case.
When we arrived it was pouring rain. Luckily both of us had at least been sensible enough to pack umbrellas. We had an adventure on the bus system (being made to pay twice when we transferred...ah well), then made our way up some windy, cobblestoned streets to Eric's pad. The high ceilings and wood floors reminded me of a Berlin altbau. His roomie's cat immediately settled on my lap and started clawing the sh*t out of my legs. Which admittedly, I kind of enjoyed.
We headed out, umbrellas in hand, to take a walk around the city and find a bakery to try the local specialty pastry, pastéis de nata. They were indeed delicious. When we emerged from the bakery, it had stopped raining! Yay!
We made our way down the hill through Alfama, an old neighborhood with winding streets and interesting buildings. We crossed through the downtown area and then hopped on a street tram to Belem, another neighborhood, where we saw a HUGE monastery, the outside of the modern art museum, and the Vasco de Gama sculpture on the waterfront. The bridge across the Tagus looks just like the Golden Gate--who knew?
Here's me with the bridge in the background as seen from the giant Jesus statue, which I'll get to in a bit:
That night we stopped by Eric's local grocery store, having gotten back to his neighborhood via wonderful rattling old wooden tram #28. It was housed in an interesting building:
I love going to local supermarkets. We made a delicious pasta dish and had some local beers before passing out.
The next day we decided to take the train to a nearby beach town, Cascais. I wore my swimsuit under my clothes and threatened to swim, but that didn't happen...it was too cold, and besides, I didn't have a towel.
The beach was beautiful though and so was the little town of Cascais...
We wandered all along the coastline, met some hilarious sassy American women while chillin on some rocks by the shore, and wandered back to the train via a park filled with weird birds (peacocks, strutting roosters and hens, ducks, geese, and some weird mothers with tumor-like things on their faces) and the cute winding streets of Cascais. That night we cooked and stayed in again.
The next morning Celia took off for Porto, an old and apparently beautiful city north of Lisbon (and yes, that's where port wine comes from) while Eric and I headed up into the mountains to Sintra, where Lisbon's elite used to spend their summers in the cooler mountain climate. It was pouring rain...all day...but we braved it and explored an awesome estate with crazy grottos, caves, castles and one mysterious underground tower:
We also checked out the estate's mansion which had a neat tower and a secret alchemy lab on the roof.
We were soaked to the skin and pretty tired by then, but we also decided to check out Sintra's royal palace, and got more than we bargained for when a historical dance troupe began performing in the first room:
The rest of the palace was also cool, with lots of neat decorative details like the "swan room" (where the dancers performed) with swans on the ceiling, one room with 3D ceramic tiles shaped like corn cobs (Lisbon is known for its tilework; there're beautiful tiles covering facades all over the city, see my flickr set for some examples), and one room with the ceiling painted all over with magpies representing the queen's ladies-in-waiting, something to do with the king being caught flirting with one and claiming that it weren't no thang. There was also a "Goddess Diana courtyard":
Plus the palace is well known for its two HUGE conical kitchen chimneys, and the kitchens were pretty impressive to see, even though they were flooded with rain.
Though the palace was awesome we were truly done for after that and hopped back on the train to Lisbon.
After resting up in the apartment for a while, we headed out to find some dinner (at about 10pm, haha) and found a random little place where they served us small salads, big slabs of fresh salmon with veggies, and chocolate mousse for around 10eur. I was impressed. Afterwards we wandered over to Bairro Alto (high neighborhood), Lisbon's party area. The streets were crammed with revelers and we joined the fray, wandering the narrow, tilted streets with beers in hand.
On Saturday it was sunny and beautiful! We headed to the Saturday flea market in Alfama and I found a cool old enamel pin. Eric found some sunglasses but didn't buy them, a decision he later regretted. And a delightful drunk repeatedly accosted us with his plastic water bottle full of red wine. Good times.
We walked Alfama again and the photographic opportunities had increased a thousandfold with the beautiful sunshine pouring through the alleyways. Eventually we reached the waterfront, and walked along it to catch a ferry across the river. Then we caught a bus up the hill to see the Cristo Rei, a huge statue of Jesus that overlooks the city much like the one in Rio.
Eric had already been up the top but I dutifully paid my entrance, rode the crowded elevator, and bounded up the last few steps to the viewing platform.
The view of the city and surrounding area was breathtaking and the statue, even from up close, was epicly large.
(it was windy up there).
Soon after we got back to the apartment, Celia came back from Porto bearing a bottle of port (yum) and we headed back to Bairro Alto for dinner at a place with a reasonable all-you-can-eat buffet. The food was pretty good for the price and we had a nice last meal. Then we headed around the corner to a crazy bar jam-packed with knick knacks of all descriptions. Eric was sitting in front of the train display:
Then we headed out on the town, passing around the port bottle like the classy folks we are, and took a turn around Bairro Alto before calling it a night, since we had to get up at 4am (!!!) to catch our flight back to Berlin.
Next up: California!
Then: multiple posts about Berlin!
Then: traveling for a month in May with sporadic yet wildly interesting posts!
Bis bald,
D.
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