I left off with my last blog during the first week of May. I don't have anything blog-worthy to share about my time at school, but I had a nice weekend planned. Morgan and I had plans to spend the day in Alcázar de San Juan on Friday, and on Sunday I was going to Segóbriga, an archaeological park close to Quintanar that houses Roman ruins.
Unfortunately, things really didn't go according to plan. The bus to Alcázar broke down, so we couldn't go on Friday, and then it rained on Sunday, so we didn't go to the park either. So I ended up having a very lowkey weekend, but Morgan, Vicki and I did manage to watchCalamity Jane, one of Morgan's favorite movies. We've been trying to watch it for ages but we had numerous technical difficulties with different DVD players and connections. Finally, we got it to work. It was in black and white and the image was doubled, but we had audio and visual so we watched it anyway.
The following week, I don't have anything blog-worthy to share about school again, but I had an even shorter week than usual. The elementary school gave me Thursday off so that I could meet my aunt Erin in Lisbon for an extra long weekend. I had many options for getting to Lisbon, but the cheapest and easiest option was to take an overnight bus, so on Wednesday evening, I took a bus to Madrid and then hopped on the bus to Lisbon. The ride was eight hours, and I planned on sleeping for most of it. That plan was thwarted by a rude family that kept talking (It was a night bus. What did they think most people were doing on the bus?), but I managed to sleep for several hours nonetheless.
The bus pulled into Lisbon at 4am Portugal time, because Portugal is in a different timezone than Spain. Obviously that meant it was too early for me to go to the hotel, but I was prepared with a book and planned on waiting in the station until a more reasonable time of the morning. Unfortunately, when I got to the "station," I discovered that it was actually an open-air bus terminal, which meant that I had to sit outside. It wasn't freezing, by any means, but it wasn't warm, either, and the cold started to get to me after I'd been there awhile. Sometime before 7:00, cafés finally started opening so I could go inside to get warm. Traveling is certainly never boring, at least for me.
Once the clock struck 8:00, I decided to board a bus into the city center. It took 15 minutes of wandering around for me to find the right bus stop (This bus station is the largest in Lisbon, so try not to judge me) and then it took me another 30 minutes on the bus, so I didn't get to the hotel until close to 9:00. I dropped off my bags and connected to WiFi, only to discover that Erin, who was supposed to get in to the airport around 9:00, had to be rerouted through Munich and wouldn't be arriving until around 3:00 in the afternoon. I'm not one to waste an opportunity to explore, so I set out by myself. I stayed close to neighborhood that the hotel was in, but I wandered around for several hours. Lisbon is often compared to San Francisco, and one of many reasons is for the hills. Lisbon is built on five different hills, and take it from me that they are not small. I got my first taste of the Lisbon hills when I walked up to the Castelo de São Jorge, a castle on a hilltop that overlooks the city. I didn't go inside because I thought it would probably be something Erin and I could do together, but the views even from the outside of the castle were amazing. I did manage to find an elevator that went up part of the way, but it was still quite a hike (I went up three inclines, took the elevator up seven stories, then went up three more inclines, just to get to the bottom of the castle).
During my travels, I also had my first experience with Portuguese pastries. Portugal is famous for their pastries, so the first one I tried was Pães de Deus, a delicious coconut pastry dusted with powdered sugar. I figured I deserved one for wandering around for several hours. After exploring every inch of our neighborhood and stopping for lunch, I headed back to the hotel to wait for Erin. She finally made it around 3:30pm, after having yet another struggle with a cab driver who would only accept cash, but our spirits were high because we were together. After taking some time to freshen up a little, we ventured back out.
Our first stop was to go to the Santa Justa elevator. Lisbon is made up of hills, as I said, but we were staying in the valley among them at the Santa Justa Hotel, so the elevator was right around the corner from us. Because all of the hills were around us, going to the top of the elevator afforded really lovely views of the surrounding area.
Posing with the Santa Justa elevator
At the top! (The castle above me in the background to the right is where I went earlier in the day)
View of the river Tagus
View of Rossio square
We then had to hike up to a plaza in Barrio Alto, another hilly neighborhood, because we'd booked a dinner tour to eat authentic Portuguese food and the tour left from Praça Luís de Camões. Thankfully we had time to have a drink and catch our breath before the tour left, but we were being driven in a minivan, anyway. Our first stop was in Largo do Carmo, the plaza where democracy was born when Portugal ended their dictatorship in 1974. In addition to being historically significant, it's also a beautiful plaza that also has the Convento do Carmo. The convent was originally built in 1389, but most of it was destroyed in the catastrophic 1755 earthquake that leveled much of the city. The convent is the last remaining ruined relic as a result of the earthquake, a tribute to the thousands of people who were killed.
Largo do Carmo
Convento do Carmo
Flying buttress attached to the convent
We then got back in the minivan and headed out of the historic center into the newer part of the city. On a quiet street seemingly not near anything except apartments, we had our dinner in a small but very crowded restaurant, so we knew the food would be delicious. We enjoyed drinking vinho verde, or green wine, which is a naturally sparkling wine that is made in Portugal. For dinner, we got to choose small portions from many different plates, including goat cheese and honey toasts, olives, snails, shellfish, codfish, black pork, and more. Erin and I both enjoyed most of the food, and we both love to try new things. We also got to try moscatel, a Portuguese dessert wine. When we finished eating, we got back in the van and our guide drove us to the Belém area of Lisbon.
Belém is famous for the many monuments in the area, including the Tower of Belém, Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (a gothic monastery right near the water), and the Monument of Discoveries. Lisbon's most famous pastry is also made in Belém, so that's where we stopped next. The pastry is a custard tart dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar, and the original one is called pasteis de Belém. There are knockoffs all over Lisbon, but the Belém name is trademarked, so the knockoffs are called pasteis de nata, which just means custard pastry. So we got pasteis de Belém for all of the people on the tour and then went over to the Tower of Belém to eat them. Our guide had also brought port, the most Portuguese wine, to drink with our dessert, while we sat near the tower along the water.
After dessert at the Tower of Belém
Our last stop of the tour was in Alfama, the oldest part of the city that was established by the Moors thousands of years ago. Alfama is also the birthplace offado, a famous type of Portuguese music that reminded me a bit of Spanish flamenco. We wandered the winding streets a little bit before heading back to the hotel to call it a night, where we had no trouble falling quickly to sleep.
In the morning, we had a tour booked to take us out of Lisbon and into wine country. The first stop of the day was to cross the 25 de Abril bridge, a red suspension bridge that looks almost exactly like the Golden Gate Bridge from a distance, to get to the Santuario Nacional de Cristo Rei, a reproduction of the Christ the Redeemer statue on the mountaintop in Rio de Janiero. So we were in Lisbon, but we were looking at things that looked like they were from San Francisco and Rio, which was a pretty cool experience.
San Francisco or Lisbon? Who knows?
This one is on a pedestal, unlike the one in Rio
We then stopped at Palmela Castle, a partly ruined castle that had really cool views of the surrounding area, before continuing to a winery in Arrábida National Park, where we tasted two red wines and two whites as well as another moscatel. After our tasting, we stopped for lunch in Sesimbra, a picturesque seaside fishing village. I ordered crab for lunch and had the interesting experience of smashing it with a mallet on a block of granite. It was, in fact, just as ridiculous as it sounds.
At Palmela Castle
Small winery wine tasting
View of Sesimbra
Pretty tiled house in Sesimbra
After lunch, we went to one more winery, bigger and older than the one we visited earlier, and tried another red wine and another moscatel. That was our last stop before heading back to Lisbon via the Vasco da Gama bridge, the longest bridge in Europe (which clocks in at 10.7 miles).
Courtyard at the winery
Older, larger winery than our first visit
Erin had heard that Barrio Alto, the hilly neighborhood that we visited briefly the night before, had the best nightlife, so we decided to have dinner there. On our way there, we stopped in Praça do Comercio, a beautiful square in front of the water that has an arch similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. We tried Portuguese beer (which in my opinion is nothing to write home about) before continuing on to Barrio Alto. We ended up eating a delicious Italian dinner before heading back down to our hotel at the foot of the hills.
Praça do Comercio (the end of the world appeared to be nigh, but it was a false alarm)
Closer up of the Arco da Rua Augusta, aka Portuguese Arc de Triomphe
Saturday morning, we slept in a little because we were spending the day in Lisbon. Our first order of business after breakfast was to take the famous tram 28 to the top of Alfama, the oldest neighborhood, to visit the São Jorge castle that I had discovered on Thursday. The line for the tram was very long, and it took us an hour to get on one and it ended up not being very impressive. My advice to anyone visiting Lisbon is to just hop on a tram that you don't have to wait for, because you'll get the same experience for less time. We got off the tram right near Igreja de São Vicente de Fora, another pretty church, and explored a nearby flea market before continuing on to the castle (Which was, of course, still uphill, despite taking the tram). But once we got to the castle, it was well worth walking the incline. We got to clamber over rocks and walls and the views were absolutely outstanding. No matter that Erin and I are both extremely accident prone, so we had some near misses but we both survived.
View from the castle
Inside the castle
Castle itself
Walking among the ruins (and a sneaky photo of Erin)
We did a little shopping for the azulejo tile for which Portugal is famous before stopping for lunch in a pretty restaurant with a lovely view of the water. We took the elevator that I'd discovered the other day down to the neighborhood of our hotel before heading over to the Praça da Figueira to hire a tuk tuk, because we wanted to go back to the Belém area of the city and it's too far to walk. For anyone who isn't familiar with tuk tuks, here's a picture of one:
Tuk tuk
As you might be able to imagine, this was by far the funniest and most ridiculous part of the trip. Erin and I couldn't stop giggling the entire time. Further adding to our delight was the fact that the flat road along the water that goes from the city center to Belém was partially closed because of a marathon, so our driver had to take us up into the hills and then back down to get to Belém. We were absolutely cackling as we were flying downhill in our tuk tuk. It was definitely one of the funniest travel experiences I've ever had.
We disembarked from our tuk tuk right in front of the Monument of Discoveries. Historically, Portugal is one of the countries that has made the most maritime discoveries in the world, so they built a sculpture that includes individual carvings of famous Portuguese explorers, the most prominent of course being Vasco da Gama.
Monument of Discoveries
We then crossed the street to get to the Jerónimos monastery, walking through the gardens on our way over. The monastery was closed because it was late afternoon, but we got to go inside the church connected to it. I was really impressed by the church, which, considering how many I've seen in my travels around Europe, is really saying something.
Jerónimos monastery
Tomb of Vasco da Gama inside the church
Inside the church
Church doorway
We took a bus back toward the city center and stopped at the Time Out market, a gourmet food court on the outskirts of the city center where we had delicious food. It was really crowded, probably because it was a Saturday evening, but it was worth it for the food.
Time Out market
Sunday was our last day together, because I was taking another overnight bus back to Madrid in the evening, but we had the whole day together. We spent the day outside of Lisbon, the first stop being in Sintra. Sintra is the name of both a mountain and a town, and the town is close to the top of the mountain. The town of Sintra is very pretty and quaint, and they have a delicious local pastry called travesseiros, a sugared puff pastry filled with almond cream. While we were there, we also tried ginjinja, a cherry flavored liqueur commonly served in cups made out of chocolate.
Sintra
Older version of the royal palace
The highlight of visiting Sintra, however, was going to the Pena Palace. The Pena Palace used to be where Portuguese royalty spent their summers, so the area is actually full of palaces and castles of noble families who wanted to be near the royalty, including an older palace the royalty used to use that's in the Sintra town center. But the Pena Palace puts the others to shame.
Erin and I couldn't stop marveling at the palace. The photos don't even do it justice; it looked like a fairy tale drawing come to life. I could have spent the day there happily.
Pena Palace
View from the palace
Erin and I at the top!
Courtyard inside the palace
Palace entryway
When we finished checking out the palace, we got back in the van and made a stop for lunch, where we had more authentic Portuguese food. We then continued on to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe.
I kept thinking, "Go west, young man!" while I was here
Cabo da Roca
Cabo da Roca lighthouse
Our next stop was a brief one at Boca do Inferno (which translates to "Hell's Mouth,") a natural cave on the outskirts of the resort town of Cascais.
Boca do Inferno
The final stop on our tour was in Cascais, a lovely resort town with beautiful beaches and delicious gelato. Sintra was our older stop of the day, and Cascais was the modern one, which made for a pretty cool experience.
Flower-covered restaurant in Cascais
Cascais
Beach and harbor
We headed back into Lisbon, where there was no one on the road because there was a huge soccer game taking place. Benfica and Sporting, the two teams of Lisbon, were both in the running to finish first in the national league. Benfica has the largest registered fan base in the world (their fan club has 6 million members), so we were a little worried about how the Portuguese would react if they didn't win. But we needn't have worried because they ended up in first place, with Sporting coming in second. I got my things together and had to head to the bus station, so I missed most of the craziness, but Erin informed me that the hooligans were out partying until 6am.
My bus ride back to Madrid was blissfully uneventful, and I had an easier time sleeping on the way back. I had to wait in the Madrid station for a couple of hours (which is an actual station, so I was waiting indoors) before I could take the first bus back to Quintanar. I got into Quintanar at 9:30, and I got to go home and take a short nap before I had to go to school to teach in the afternoon.
This week seems like it's going to be relatively uneventful, but Vicki, Morgan and I are having a last hurrah girls' weekend in Alicante, a beach town in Valencia, this coming weekend, so I'll have something to write about next week. As hard as it is to believe, that will actually be my last blog post as Woman of La Mancha, because next week is my final week in Spain. Where did the time go?
Comments