A Little Bit More Lisbon

For our first full day in Lisbon, we got off to a rather late start as we both slept in. I am suffering from a little jet lag having just gotten back from China on Wednesday morning and we left for Lisbon on Wednesday night - that was my excuse. Our first course of action was to get some food, so we asked at the front desk of our hotel what she recommended that was close. Up the street from us was this great little bakery/lunch counter that seemed to fill up with people right after we arrived.  There was a little bit of a language barrier but the woman serving us knew that we were hungry and wanted to eat, so brought us this yummy seafood and rice dish.

Portugese Coke Zero

Our next course of action was to find the Hop On/Hop Off bus stop, which happened to be about a 10 minute walk from our hotel.  For the next hour and half, we happily rode around Lisbon taking in the sites and sounds of the city (and no, we didn't hop off).  After riding most of the Red Line of the bus, we got off in the central part of the old part of Lisbon (it has some name but I don't know what it is) and decided that we wanted to go up to the Castelo De S. Jorge,  which is this old castle that looks over Lisbon. It was built in the 11th century and much of it is still standing. Both Rebecca and I commented on the craftsmanship and wondered how the hell they built this at that time?! It truly is amazing what they did with very little technology (as we know it) 

Now the castle sits up above Lisbon, up high on a hill and honestly, the thought of trekking up there was not high on my list, so we took Tram 28 which a historic tram. Given that the streets in this part of Lisbon are old cobblestone, and the tramline is set in the old

cobblestone, it was a very rough ride up but we both agreed that it was much better than walking! We probably spent a good hour up there just wandering around, looking at the views of Lisbon and just enjoying the great weather.

After the castle, we found the bus (public transit) that would take us back down the hill, not that we were opposed to walking but we saw the bus and it was going where we were wanting to go, so why not?! We went back down to the square (who's name I don't know) where we finally found the elusive gelato. About 4 hours earlier I had said that we should have some gelato - do you think we could find any - no. But lo and behold, just after we got off the bus, I looked across the square and there it was - a gelato place. 

A big international mask festival was being kicked off  in a different square about a block away and we happened to catch the end of it. There were also a bunch of food booths and little kiosks of stuff to buy, including this really cool wool shop where I bought a small purse and Rebecca got the cutest little toque for the winter. While here, we also discovered some amazing food including some sort of cherry liquor in chocolate cups (yummy), a melted cheese on bread - hard to explain - see picture, then it was back to the Portugese bakery stalls, where we each had a chocolate egg tart.  

This is the cheese being melted

OMG these were so good - now I can see why they are so famous!

Trust me - it doesn't look like much but it is oh so good!

By now we had been touring about for 6.5 hours and decided that we would grab the Hop On/Hop Off bus and head back towards our hotel for a little rest, freshen up and would head down to the Port of Lisbon area for supper. Yah - that never happened. We got back to our hotel, and each laid down for a little rest.  I think I fell asleep first and when I woke up, Rebecca was sleeping so I went back to sleep. I heard her go out about 10:30pm I think, and when I got up this morning, I saw that she had McDonalds (it is just down the street from us) and bought me a cheeseburger :-)

Today we are heading out towards Alcochete, where there is a designer outlet mall for some shopping! Alchochote is located on the left bank of the River Tagus and is an authentic/traditional Portugese vaillage - so we should get some culture today as well :-) After that, the plan is to head down to the train station (we know where it is now) and take the train out to Estoril, which is where we will spend Saturday & Sunday, mainly relaxing on the beach, or at least that is the plan for now.

Lisbon Long Weekend

The one downside about living in the Netherlands is the lack of statutory holidays - there aren't as many as there are back in Canada and they all seem to be lumped together within 3 weeks - seriously. We got April 30 for Queen's Day, May 9 for Ascension, May 10 for who knows why and May 20 for WhitMonday and then we don't get anymore stats until Christmas. Unfortunately I didn't get to partake in Queen's Day as I was in Malaysia (and will eventually get all of my blogs posted :-) ) but luckily, I had made plans early in April with a colleague/friend Rebecca to take advantage of the first May long weekend by going to Portugal for 5 days.

I know Rebecca through work but it goes beyond that. When I first started working in oil & gas, I worked with her dad at Anderson/Devon and he used to talk about his daughters Rebecca & Renee who would have been in junior high at the time (this should give you an idea of the age difference). Flash forward about 14 years and her and I now both work for Shell and started to work together on a few projects in Heavy Oil (she is a landman). In early December she found out that she got a short term international assignment (STIA) over to the Netherlands to a place called Groningen and moved there in March. What is good for me is that she loves to travel too, so her and I had got to talking at work and decided that we would try this weekend together.

For me, this is the least planned I have been on a trip, and I am not an uber planner. Essentially, all we had booked was our flights (KLM to Lisbon on Wednesday night) and our hotels in both Lisbon & Estoril. Rebecca was in charge of booking our first 2 nights in Lisbon and I booked our rooms in Estoril and our last night in Lisbon. We are leaving nice, bright and early (6:30am - ugh) on Monday, so I just booked us at the Holiday Inn up by the airport. Rebecca scored for us in Lisbon big time. She booked us into the Clarion Suites, which had decent ratings on TripAdvisor and was in a pretty central location. When we arrived, which was about midnight, the guy upgraded us to the penthouse suite, which was essentially a 2 bedroom apartment. We had a living room, 2 bedrooms each with a king sized bed and 2 full bathrooms - all for 175 euros!

We have nothing planned for this trip except that we would do the Hop On/Hop Off bus to get a sense of the city and then would just go from there. Normally I have done some searching on the internet or picked up a travel book - for this trip - nope. Just winging it!