Lisbon

The people have been asking for an update! I accidentally skipped posting my Vietnam trip Thanksgiving 2024, but I didn't want to skip posting about our Portugal trip earlier this year. 

Portugal is THE place to be this year. In the span of 3-4 months, three of my friends are going to Portugal after I just returned in March. I had been wanting to go to Portugal for years, after hearing how many expats were moving there due to it's natural beauty, great quality of life and low cost of living (later on, I learned quite a controversial topic). However, I didn't pull the trigger until I found great points flights to and from Portugal--it was meant to be! 

We first had to reposition from LA to SF where we caught a TAP Portugal flight from SFO to Lisbon. TAP Portugal is the national airline of Portugal and the business class experience was just fine. It ranked the lowest out of all of my business class flights so far. Food was also nothing to write home about, I didn't even take a picture of it. But it was only 63,000 points AMEX points transferred to Avianca Lifemiles so still well worth it the use of points. 

We landed around noon, and after dropping off our bags at our hotel, walked around to explore the city center. It was very compact and we walked nearly everywhere. Little did we know this was best weather we would have our entire trip (for a mere few hours when we landed)! 

We walked from the Praca do Comercio (the main plaza in Lisbon) to the famous TimeOut Market. We got there around 3 pm and it was packed. Honestly you could skip it. After waiting in line at the various stalls to get our food, we had to stalk seats to even sit down an eat.

Then by the time we left the market, it started raining, and then didn't stop for the rest of our trip. We walked back to the hotel to change and then walked back across town to "Pink Street" which is just this street painted pink with these umbrellas over it. I would not go out of my way to come to Pink Street, but our dinner reservation was at Povo Lisboa on the street and so it was well worth it for the dinner. 

If you go to Portugal, look up fado. It's a sort of national genre of music which usually consists of one singer and 1-2 musicians singing melancholy songs over dinner. They have all types of fado shows, small intimate performances in tiny restaurants, larger concert hall type performances, and places in between. I looked up multiple ones to figure out whether I wanted a more traditional setting or a more concert type experience, and I settled on Povo, which was more a modern setting. The vibes were immaculate (think circus vibes) and the food was amongst the best we had in Portugal. 

The egg dish in the back left was bacalau, a salted cod dish. Definitely not what I expected but worth a try. The artists were great, but they took multiple intermissions and we were feeling the jetlag so we ducked out early after we finished our dinner. 

Our second day, we woke up bright and early to check out the Castle of St. George. We stayed at FLH Memoria Lisbon, which was coincidentally across the street (or down the hill) from the Castle. It was locally in an architecturally stunning building and a great value, but it was halfway up a quite steep hill, so people who have trouble getting around will probably want to get a hotel closer to the Placa de Comercial. I loved the breakfast and dining room though--I die for European bread and dairy. 

As our hotel was just down the hill from the Castle, we took a few public elevators up to the castle entrance (you can see the elevator in the far right of the photo). The castle opened at 9 am, so we arrived right at opening and there was no line and very few other tourists. By the time we left around 10:30, there was a long line and it was a lot busier. 

The view that made me want to visit Lisbon 

I loved walking around the ruins of the castle when it was nearly empty. There are no grand interiors, basically just ruins and the shell of a real medieval castle from the 13th century that was rebuilt multiple times. But there are peacocks! Actually quite a few randomly in Lisbon and Porto. 

After we finished exploring the castle, we walked down the hill to the Alfama district, which was a historical district where sailors and seafarers lived. Walk down the winding streets and stop at a few viewpoints around the way. The main viewpoints were at Miradouro Portas do Sol and Miradouro de Santa Luzia below. Santa Luzia was my favorite because of the contrast between the blue tiles and the red rooftops. 

Miradouro de Santa Luzia

Stopped at a tiny cafe in Alfama for an espresso and pastel de nata 

We stopped for lunch at a famous spot for bifanas, a famous pork sandwich in Lisbon. We were unimpressed--it's quite a simple sandwich so it wasn't really for me, but I did find a better bifana a few days later! It was pouring the rest of the afternoon, so we took the metro to a nearby art museum (the Gulbenkian) to spend the rainy afternoon. 

The following day, we took a day trip to Sintra and Cascais. We booked the excursion on Viator, but they are widely available on TripAdvisor, Expedia, or other booking websites and are about the same price (about $125 per day). Sintra is a nearby "fairytale" town which was the home of the Pena Palace, a royal summer retreat for the monarchs of Portugal. It was built more recently than you think (1800's) and was only used for a few decades before being turned into a museum/tourist attraction. I think it was just OK. It definitely doesn't have the historical depth as other famous castles in England or France. 

There are a few other castles in the town of Sintra, including Quinta de Regaleira, a fancy manor house with beautiful grounds. You could have spent half a day exploring the house and the grounds, however we only had about an hour so we sprinted to the main attraction at Quinta Regaleira, which is the Initiation Well. 

We then hopped back in our van and our tour guide drove us to Cap du Rocha (the westernmost point in Europe) and the beachside town of Cascais. 

Cascais was really nice. It was a filming site for one of the old James Bond movies and you definitely get that mediterranean/Nice vibes. We had a nice meal of fresh seafood and walked around the small beach town, too cold to swim or sunbathe. 

Our last day in Lisbon was of course raining again. We had a half day before we had to take the train to Porto, so we took the city tram to Belem, a suburb about 30 minutes outside of the city center. The main attraction is the monastery of Jeronomos. 

The Monastery was a bit confusing as there are long lines for both sides of the attraction. The line for the left was for the inside of the monastery which is what we did. However, the line on the right was to see the chapel and tomb of Vasco de Gama. I assumed tickets to the monastery would include both attractions but apparently, you had to line up again on the right side if you wanted to enter the chapel. Because it was raining and the line was another 30 minutes wait, we had to skip the tomb and instead found cover at the famous Pasteis de Belem. 

Apparently the famous pastel de nata originated here at the Pasteis de Belem so it's a famous spot (featured on Somebody Feed Phil!). They have a huge sitting area to relax after seeing the monastery and because we didn't have a lot of time before our train, we just snacked on a bunch of pastries for lunch. 

We took an uber back as it was raining back to our hotel, and I had to grab a bifana to go. The most famous spot for bifana was located right outside our hotel, As Bifanas do Afonso, and everytime we would go back to the hotel we would see this huge line outside. The first time I got it I go it without cheese and it was good--way better than the one we had at Cafe di Bifanas.  The second time I got it, I got it with cheese and it was infinitely better. When I was in line, a bunch of tourists even asked me, what should I get here? And I had to tell them the classic one with cheese! I packed up my precious bifana and took it on our three hour train. Next stop, Porto!