Portugal Part III - Lisbon

After a couple of relaxing days in Porto Covo, we hopped on a bus early Thursday morning and arrived in Lisbon around noon. We took a cab to our rental apartment, where we were met by Deb, a transplanted American, who along with her husband Jordan rent out a number of apartments in the heart of Lisbon through their website Visiting Portugal. She was really great, and after letting us in the apartment, she gave us a little food to keep in the fridge, and then gave us a tour of the neighbourhood around our apartment, which included some nice restaurant recommendations that we took her up on during our stay.

After our tour, we decided to hit up a local grocery store, where we bought some fresh fruit, and ate that along with some fresh Portuguese buns and cheese from Deb for our lunch. We washed it down with some green wine, or Vinho Verde, a Portuguese wine that we quite enjoyed.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the city, and did a little shopping for Portuguese potteries. Airline luggage restrictions stopped us from buying too much, which may have been a good thing, because there was so much beautiful pottery around that we could have easily bought enough to fill up 5 suitcases. For dinner we went to a Nepalese restaurant that Deb recommended, and it did not disappoint.

On Friday we went to see the Castle of São Jorge, which dates back hundreds of hundreds of years, and saw a number of important battles before eventually being used as a palace for Portuguese royalty. The castle was very cool, and offered great views of Lisbon as well.

To get down from the castle, we hopped on one of Lisbon's street cars for the ride back down to the old town. Riding the street cars through the old neighbourhoods is supposed to be one of the best tourist attractions in town, but we found it not as enjoyable. Instead, it was just like being stuck on a hot, crowded street car in rush hour, barely moving, and really, we could have done that anywhere...

For dinner we took another one of Deb's recommendations and went to a nice restaurant called Café Buenos Aires, a tiny little place that puts tables out on the stairway overlooking the main square of Lisbon. It was really nice, and much to Erin's delight, offered a number of dishes filled with vegetables, which is rare in meat & potatoes Portugal.

On Sunday, we ventured out of the city center and took a 15-20 minute street car ride to the historic suburb of Belém. There, we toured the Belém Tower, a fortification built in the early 1500's, which was built to be both a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon and also for defensive purposes.

Afterwards, it started to rain (fortunately the first rain we saw all trip), so we rushed over to the town of Belém and found the world famous Casa Pastéis de Belém pastry shop, and had some delicious Pastéis de nata, which small custard tarts that are very popular in the area. They are served fresh and warm and were very, very good. While we were inside, the rain stopped, and we headed back into Lisbon's old town.

For dinner that night, we went to a tiny little hole in the wall that we'd seen the night before, and had one last traditional Portuguese meal (i.e. meat and potatoes) before heading home. After 9 days of travel, and with an early flight the next morning, we were pretty beat and just went back to our apartment for a somewhat early night in.




Portugal was great. Porto, Porto Covo and Lisbon were all quite different from one another, but there was a definite similarity between these towns as well. The Portuguese seemed quite laid back and friendly almost everywhere we went. The weather was great, the food was great, the and the beaches were great. Hopefully we will get to go back one day.