Lisbon

Sorry if this has taken a while to update. Other stuff has happened that I wasn't in a cheery mood to give Lisbon the right amount of awesome justice.

Even though Lisbon is the capital of Portugal, I didn't really know what to expect. But, the second we arrived, it was amazing! The weather was even better than Barcelona, the whole city is in the hills, making walking both fun...and exhausting. There was a beach and some really neat monuments.

Our hostel was AMAZING! Lisbon Poets Hostel. It was beautiful with orange and red decorations a lounge with bean bag chairs, free internet, a kitchen, free breakfast, a hammock a tv that played the Simpsons in Portuguese on loop. It was a quality establishment.

Torre de Belem: An old Bell Tower that was so much fun! Although, we couldn't find the bridge over the train tracks at first and got there by going underneath a highway. Whoops. It had about 5 stories that you took cool windy stairs up, beautiful views of the entire city. 

Christopher Columbus Monument: So CC left from Lisbon to you know, discover America and they have this MASSIVE monument in his honor. It was really neat. We were there at sundown and then took a bunch of fun pictures. 

Our hostel was located in Barrio Alto, or the Bar district, so we went out and explored the local bars. Beer was only about 2 euro each but we had been traveling since 5 am that morning, so we turned in early.

After the first day, I didn't know what else we could do to top them. I was wrong.

Flea Market: We went to this cool flea market where everything under the sun was being sold. The normal jewlery, Portugal futbol jerseys and pashminas. But also, camera chargers, old tvs, porn. Whatever. Also, Lisbon is known for their tiling. All the buildings had the coolest tiles so they were selling tiles here that dated back to 1890. I got a yellow pashimina for 3 euro and a cool guys fake rolex for 5 euro.

Castle St. Georges?: I think that's the name. Whatever, it was SO AMAZING. It was this huge castle I felt like a kid playing Princesses and was running all around this place. We took the coolest pictures climbing on things we probably shouldn't have. So much fun.

Our concierge told us about Fado music. It's apparently this really soulful, guitar music that Portugal is known for. Our concierge made it sound like it was a whole evening with dinner, music, wine and was really popular for about 20-25 euro. He was wrong. He made us reservations at this really expensive restaurant that had music. Everyone cleared out around 11:30 and it was just really strange. That was the only downside to Lisbon. 

But we still had all Sunday to finish exploring b/c our flight wasn't until 8:40 pm. You know that statue in Rio of Jesus on the mountain? Well, Lisbon has a replica. So we went. To get there we took the metro, to a boat, to a bus. It was raining. But still really cool. After, we didn't feel like doing much but we went to a museum for free and then packed and went home.

Lisbon, Portugal, highly recommended. I don't have enough time to write all of the amazing things, but remind me to tell you more about it in person!