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| Dinner with (from left to right) me, Jess, Leah, Ricardo, a Hungarian guest and Milagros. |
We arrived to Portugal at 9am on Wednesday. Leah and her mom picked us up from the airport, and, wasting no time, Leah took us on a greatest hits tour of Lisboa, as it’s called in Portuguese. We walked all over the city, with Leah as our fabulous tour guide, and enjoyed the cultural sites. Lisbon was beautiful and relatively uncrowded. Buildings - inside and out - were decorated with ornate Portuguese tile, and I loved the colorful effect they gave the architecture. The streets and sidewalks were commonly paved with small cube stones that were like organized cobblestones. They created beautiful designs, but were also crazy slippery and, as Milagros told us, horrible in both rain and high heels. We walked down one of the main boulevards to a plaza downtown to try traditional cherry liqueur, and Leah promptly had us tipsy at 10:30am. We walked off the buzz and later ate some traditional Portuguese food. Jess had duck with rice, and I enjoyed bacalao a bras - cod with potatoes sautéed in eggs. Bacalao (cod) is common in Portugal and Leah told me about a saying that ‘there are a thousand ways to cook bacalao in portugal’. Our tour continued and we saw all the main monuments - from the Santa Justa Elevator, which was designed to connect the highest and lowest parts of Lisbon, to the castle of Sao Jorge, set high above the city with beautiful views of the bay and river, to the 25 of Abril bridge which looked surprising like the Golden Gate. Having traversed the city, we went home exhausted and fell right asleep after a lovely dinner with Leah’s family.
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| The slippy "cobblestones" lining the sidewalk |
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| The Golden Gate Bridge???? nah, Its the 25 of April Bridge. |
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| Sample 1 of tiling on the outside of a building |
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| Tiling from a distance |
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| Sample 2 of tiling on the outside of a building |
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| Tiling from a distance. |
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| View from within the Santa Justa Elevator |
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| View from on top of the Santa Justa Elevator |
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| Leah and Jess about to enjoy lunch |
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| The view from St. George Castle |
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| The rooster portrayed in a quilt - it's a traditional Portuguese symbol representing luck, faith and justice. |
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| Tiles decorating the inside of a building |
The next day had more sightseeing - the Museum, the Tower of Belen, the Oceanarium - all lovely. And - one of my favorite parts of the day - our stop at Starbucks. Yesssss … STARBUCKS. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I’m missing Starbucks. There aren't any in Bilbao, and no coffee equivalent really exists. But, what’s worse for me is that there isn't really a cafe culture in Bilbao. At home, cafes are one of my leading school survival mechanisms and I love to curl up with my books or my computer, sometimes good company, and a cup of coffee. I can pass hours in cafes at home, and it is something I honestly miss in Bilbao. So, in Belen on Thursday we stood in the line to purchase the famous Belen pasteis which are custard like cakes with a delicious crispy layered shell. We then brought them next door to Starbucks, ordered a latte and sat using the wifi for awhile. I have to admit, there was something soothing about its familiarity and it, too, helped scratch the itch that is homesickness.
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| Me with the Oceanarium mascot dude. |
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| Leah and Jess waiting in line to buy Belem cakes. |
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| yay starbucks!! |
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| The Tower of Belen |
Our final day in Portugal, we traveled to the town of Sintra which was the country home of the Portuguese royalty and had beautiful mansions, forests, castles and gardens. We wandered around the small, touristy town, and admired its beauty. I was constantly amused by the apparent tendency of the Portuguese to overestimate time. For example, we were told that the Quinta da Regaleira would be a 10 minute walk from the bus stop; 5 minutes off the bus we were there. Later, we were told the Palacio da Pena was a 10 minute walk up a hill; in 3 minutes we were up the entire hill. A man told us it was a 15 minute walk to the train station; it took 10. Earlier in the week, Leah told us it would take 40 minutes on the metro to get to the Oceanarium; it took 20. Perhaps the Portuguese allow extra time for tourist behavior, or perhaps they are experts at strolling. Regardless, I found the consistent quirk amusing. And, truthfully, discovering the little quirks of various cultures is partially what I love about traveling. Of course, I can't presume that everything I notice is a cultural difference - most of the places I visit I don't spend enough time in to know if it is cultural or simply serendipitous. But, nonetheless, it's the differences that make me smile - both at my experiences and at the place I'm in.
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| Gardens and secret caves at the Quinta |
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| A "Wishing Well" at the Quinta that you could climb down and walk through the tunnels of the gardens. |
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| The mansion at the Quinta. |
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| The colorful Palacio da Pena |
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| Me at the Palacio da Pena, on the wall walk ... it was windy. |
