… To visit the beautiful Portuguese city of Lisbon for the weekend! After a fairly “typical” week (at least as typical a week of teaching can be), we headed off to the Casablanca airport for the very short flight to Portugal’s capital city. Our first impressions of the city were of the drive to the hotel, where we passed by the Campo Pequeno (bullfighting arena), beautiful buildings, and impressive graffiti art that took up entire facades of multi-story buildings. After a port wine cocktail and some yummy sandwiches, we went to bed early, as we had gasp a tour early the next morning. We know, a tour? That doesn’t sound like the same two people who eschew tours in order to rent our own cars and do our own thing, but this was no ordinary tour. The We Hate Tourism Tours full day tour of the area surrounding Lisbon took us to all the locations outside the city that we had on our list to see, and as the name suggests, it was a totally different experience than walking around with a tour guide. The tour began with a short ride to Sintra, where we got to know our driver and the six other people we were sharing the van with. The small town of Sintra is known for their local pastries and the many mansions surrounded by the lush mountainside. We made a fast stop for our first snack of the day, the queijada, a small, creamy, single-serving cheesecake with a caramelized top. From there we walked along the winding road (and the sculptures exhibited alongside it) to the downtown area, which featured a castle and quaint, tourist-filled streets. From there, we moved on to one of the many mountain-side mansions in the area: Quinta da Regaleira, a summer retreat for Carvalho Monteiro designed by the Italian architect, painter, and set-designer Luigi Manini, who devoted 14 years of his life to this mansion and it’s phenomenal grounds. We started by winding our way up through the grounds to the Initiatic Well, passing by many of the property’s highlights – grottoes, towers, a waterfall, and a chapel. The Initiatic Well is a “subterranean tower” that descends 27 meters into the ground via a spiral staircase and empties into a series of underground tunnels which lead out to multiple locations across the property. We followed the dark tunnel to an exit underneath the waterfall we had passed by earlier, and proceeded to explore the exciting grounds in the surrounding area. It wasn’t long before we realized we were running out of time – and we hadn’t even been in the house yet! The house was a collaboration by many artists including: Antonio Gonçalves, João Machado, José da Fonseca, Costa Motta, Rodrigo de Castro, and Júlio da Fonesca. The neo-manueline style home was smaller than anticipated – judging solely by the gardens – but the Venetian carvings and neo-medieval tower with views of Sintra and the gardens made the home remarkable nonetheless. On our way to Cabo da Roca, the end of the world, we stopped for lunch at a food truck and a small farmers market where we enjoyed a toasty, chewy, cheesy, pocket stuffed with chorizo and cheese, and served with more cheese and wine. Yum. Europe’s western-most point, Cabo da Roca, was thought to be the end of the world for a long time – until Columbus found the new world in 1492. This was a short break, a lovely viewpoint of the Atlantic Ocean, and an opportunity to add another [something]-most point to our list. Our next brief stop was in Cascais, a town most well known for its ice cream, where we visited Santini, which is often lauded as having the best ice cream in Portugal. We haven’t decided yet if it is, in fact, the best ice cream, but it certainly was delicious. The town was cute enough to merit a longer stay… but we were running out of time and still had one snack stop left! Our final stop of the day was in the neighborhood of Belem, where we visited Lisbon’s number one tourist destination, Pasëis de Belem, where they produce a pastry so good that the recipe has remained the same since 1837. The line stretched down the block and we felt very lucky to skip the line and enjoy our pastëis inside the deceptively large café with room after room of tables and chairs. From there we passed by the ornate and grand Jerónimos Monastery, and along the river to view the Fascist monument, Padrão dos Descobrimentos, and a carbon copy of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. We enjoyed a local Sagres beer before heading back to our hotel and getting some rest before our early morning second tour. We did actually decide to take two tours in Lisbon, in order for us to take full advantage of seeing each of the seven hills, the windy streets, and the gorgeous areas around the city. This tour was different as were not with a large group of people and we were exploring the city by vintage moped and sidecar. We began with sunrise over the city and wound up, down, around, up again, down again, across the city, up a hill, down another hill, out, and back again through the woods surrounding the city in our short morning tour of Lisbon. We saw what felt like every city street in Lisbon – which gave us a great opportunity to determine where we would like to visit another time (when we have more time), but only gave us very brief peeks at the very beautiful city. We saw the Bairro Alto district, where the remnants of the previous night’s partying had not yet been cleaned; a graffiti-covered Art Nouveau theatre turned sex-shop; the prettiest view of Lisbon from one of the hills; the yellow streetcars the city is known for; the very hilly Alfama district; and went all the way back to Belem, where we re-visited Pastëis de Belem to enjoy some more delicious pastries, and then headed to the beautiful Torre de Belem. The tour was so much fun and it was such a unique experience to tour around in a sidecar and it gave us enough of a glimpse to want to come back again.
4 Comments
Ken
10/5/2014 11:53:42 am
Hmm, pastries, wine, ice cream, wine, Freshly baked bread... Vintage moped with a sidecar… But the coolest thing to me would've been the spiral staircase and the tunnels! That had to be really cool :-) wonderful description of your activities, and the photos are awesome! Be safe!
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Irene
10/6/2014 01:06:38 am
Vintage moped ... You both look SO happy. Love it !
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