Lisbon - A Beautiful City (With bonus AirBNB horror story)
We took a late evening flight from the Azores to Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal. I am going to derail the wonderful parts of this trip to talk a bit about one of the stranger AirBNB experiences we have had. If you have used AirBNB extensively you know that you will experience all kinds of things. Absentee owners, owners you can't get to leave when you are dead tired and just want them to go away so that you can lay down, properties that exceed your expectations and some that don't. But I don't think we have ever experienced anything like this.
I enjoy a nice hotel as much as the next guy but as our emphasis on travel has shifted from trips designed to be mindless getaways (which we still enjoy) to our new goal of seeing as many places in the world as possible our priorities on where we stay has changed dramatically. Price and location are key and the rest is secondary to say the least. The hotels and AirBNBs we have stayed on this trip have ranged from $30-$70 a night to get you some perspective. Our new motto is that the less we spend on this trip the more we have to spend on the next trip.
So on to the AirBNB in Lisbon. We meet the owner outside the flat. He is walking and talking very very slowly stopping every few steps to tell us things about the flat. They are all negative although I am annoyed mostly by the pace this is happening at. It is nearly midnight and I am hungry and tired. As we slowly make our way into the flat the things that there are issues with mount. The last renters smoked extensively. The toilet barely flushes. The door lock is at best semi-functional. We ask him if there is any good place to eat nearby. He mentions essentially a take-out place and thankfully finally leaves. 5 minutes letter he sends Trista a message saying that a restaurant down the street is still open and serving food. We walk down there and semi-surprisingly he is sitting at the bar. So we join him. Conversation is polite for a while and then somehow we get on the topic of immigration. We do not share the same views on American immigration policy and we definitely do not share views on Portugese immigration policy as his solution is not only to build a wall but to kill anyone who tries to illegally immigrate to Portugal to teach them a lesson. I try and give him a chance to recant this horrifying viewpoint thinking maybe his English is poor... but he said verbatim that they should kill all illegal immigrants. Conversation was obviously difficult after that and we soon after left. And thankfully never had to see him again. The AirBNB served its purpose although the 2 flights of stairs up to our flat were probably the steepest I have ever experienced. That and there was a pipe by the air conditioner that dumped water down the wall any time you did anything related to the plumbing. **bonus, the flat did have a great view of the Parliament building
Now Lisbon itself is a wonderful city in my opinion. We had heard mixed things both from other travelers and from Portugese people that we had spoken with in the Azores. But my experiences were almost entirely positive. The plan for the first day was to take public transit around Lisbon taking in some of the sights and eventually taking a bus out to Belem to see the town and take in the fairly historic waterfront Tower of Belem.
We went and bought a 24h public transit pass and off we went. Now Libson has a very good public transit system in my opinion but living in Oklahoma City means we are far from experts on public transit. The Lisbon system is really 3 seperate systems that all work together. A subway system, a bus system and a tram system. There is a good app called Citymapper that has most major cities in it that works as essentially GPS for these systems. You tell it where you want to go and it tells you where to get on, where to get off, what connections to make and gives you multiple options normally to do it. It is a must in my opinion because the standard map, at least to me, looks impossible to navigate.
We start by heading to the Praco de Commercio which is probably the most touristy are of Lisbon in my opinion but a must see. It has stunning squares, buildings and arches. It also has tons of restaurants and shopping. We stopped for a drink at a patio bar and wandered around taking in the sights. We also stumbled into some kind of Portugese wine festival which of course we stopped at and sampled some good wine from the various vendors.
Then it was time to head to Belem.
So we fire up the app, go to the stop we think we are supposed to be at and patiently wait to get on the bus with the number it tells us to. It eventually arrives and we get on. After a couple stops I slowly have the feeling that something is horribly wrong. And it is because we are going completely the opposite direction. Some combination of embarrassment and panic sets in and I tell Trista we need to get off and head back. It had gotten fairly late in the day at this point and so we both decided Belem was not in the cards. Instead we decided to slowly take the subway back, stopping at a few random stops and take in the sights and eventually find someplace to eat dinner.
The first couple stops make Lisbon seem quite nice especially when out of the crush of the tourist area we started in. Nice parks, Cafe and shop lined streets and relatively quiet to where we had come from. We eventually make it back towards central Lisbon, deciding on a seafood restaurant, O Tabuas, with an outdoor patio. We order the mixed fish for two and some white wine. I am an adventurous eater and this meal was right in my wheelhouse as when the meal arrives it is 8 large fish with heads and eyes and scaled and skin still attached. I know there were mackeral but honestly couldn't tell you what the other kinds of fish were. I was too hungry at this point to really care. I can tell you that it was fantastic. The whole bill with 5 glasses of wine between us came to 25euro which is an incredible value.
We then decided to wander some more and stumbled into one of the most famous drink vendors in Lisbon. Ginjinha is a sweet relatively low proof alcohol that is full of cherries that the alcohol soaks in. It is very sweet and a perfect after dinner drink. Ginjinha Bar Lisbon has been open since 1840 in the same spot where we bought our drinks that evening. It is a tiny hole in the wall that has a line of people waiting to get a shot of the famous liqour. It costs 1.20 euro.
After this it is time to head home and we decide to catch one of the trams home. These awesome streetcars have been in operation since 1873 and are a must for some of the shorter trips you take as Lisbon is incredibly hilly.
The gameplan for day 2 is to head to Sintra. It is essentially a suburb of Lisbon with a quaint town and home to both a Moorish castle and the Pena Palace which is a 19th century Romanticist palace. To get there you take a train from central Lisbon for about 45 minutes. Now when you get to the train station in Sintra you are in town but you are still probably 2000 feet or so below the main reason you are there which is to visit the Palace and take in the stunning views of Lisbon and the surrounding areas. You have 3 choice to get up the hill. Walk a very steep winding road, tuk-tuk, or bus. We opted for the bus which worked fine but I will say that they are very crowded which does not make the actual trip up and down the mountain very pleasant.
First stop was the moorish castle which is on the mountain side. I did think it was neat but really was somewhat of a disappointment to me. Maybe it is just because we have been to Scottish castles recently but I probably could have just skipped this part of the trip and been perfectly fine.
Pena Palace is just up the road and what neither of us realized is that when you get to the entrance there is still about a 3/4 mile walk up a very steep slope to actually get up to the palace itself. It was unseasonably hot in Portugal while we were there so while the trek up the hill wasn't the worst thing ever (Trista would disagree to that statement haha!) it was far from pleasurable. But once you get to the stop the views of both the palace itself and the view from the top of the mountain is stunning. I personally would highly recommend going even though it is quite the process to get out there.
On the way back from Sintra we ended up sitting across from this elderly couple on the train (it was super cramped!). They happened to be from Santa Fe, New Mexico so we had quite a bit to chat about since we have spent a decent amount of time in the last year and a half in New Mexico. They were the nicest couple! Sometimes you happen upon genuinely nice people in your travels and they were no exception. Dennis and Dixie from Santa Fe, thank you for the wonderful company!
That evening back in Lisbon we had dinner at O Chiado which is a traditional Portugese restaurant in Baixa-Chiado which is a slightly less touristy area right down the street from our AirBNB. We had the salted cod and a pork dish, some starters and wine from Douro Valley up in northern Portugal. Overall the meal was very good (though if you aren't a salt person, the cod, as the title suggest, is very salty). The service was excellent and friendly.
From there we took the tram back to our AirBNB and called it a night. We had a train trip to Porto the next morning to take us to the next stage of our adventure.
I enjoy a nice hotel as much as the next guy but as our emphasis on travel has shifted from trips designed to be mindless getaways (which we still enjoy) to our new goal of seeing as many places in the world as possible our priorities on where we stay has changed dramatically. Price and location are key and the rest is secondary to say the least. The hotels and AirBNBs we have stayed on this trip have ranged from $30-$70 a night to get you some perspective. Our new motto is that the less we spend on this trip the more we have to spend on the next trip.
So on to the AirBNB in Lisbon. We meet the owner outside the flat. He is walking and talking very very slowly stopping every few steps to tell us things about the flat. They are all negative although I am annoyed mostly by the pace this is happening at. It is nearly midnight and I am hungry and tired. As we slowly make our way into the flat the things that there are issues with mount. The last renters smoked extensively. The toilet barely flushes. The door lock is at best semi-functional. We ask him if there is any good place to eat nearby. He mentions essentially a take-out place and thankfully finally leaves. 5 minutes letter he sends Trista a message saying that a restaurant down the street is still open and serving food. We walk down there and semi-surprisingly he is sitting at the bar. So we join him. Conversation is polite for a while and then somehow we get on the topic of immigration. We do not share the same views on American immigration policy and we definitely do not share views on Portugese immigration policy as his solution is not only to build a wall but to kill anyone who tries to illegally immigrate to Portugal to teach them a lesson. I try and give him a chance to recant this horrifying viewpoint thinking maybe his English is poor... but he said verbatim that they should kill all illegal immigrants. Conversation was obviously difficult after that and we soon after left. And thankfully never had to see him again. The AirBNB served its purpose although the 2 flights of stairs up to our flat were probably the steepest I have ever experienced. That and there was a pipe by the air conditioner that dumped water down the wall any time you did anything related to the plumbing. **bonus, the flat did have a great view of the Parliament building
Now Lisbon itself is a wonderful city in my opinion. We had heard mixed things both from other travelers and from Portugese people that we had spoken with in the Azores. But my experiences were almost entirely positive. The plan for the first day was to take public transit around Lisbon taking in some of the sights and eventually taking a bus out to Belem to see the town and take in the fairly historic waterfront Tower of Belem.
We went and bought a 24h public transit pass and off we went. Now Libson has a very good public transit system in my opinion but living in Oklahoma City means we are far from experts on public transit. The Lisbon system is really 3 seperate systems that all work together. A subway system, a bus system and a tram system. There is a good app called Citymapper that has most major cities in it that works as essentially GPS for these systems. You tell it where you want to go and it tells you where to get on, where to get off, what connections to make and gives you multiple options normally to do it. It is a must in my opinion because the standard map, at least to me, looks impossible to navigate.
We start by heading to the Praco de Commercio which is probably the most touristy are of Lisbon in my opinion but a must see. It has stunning squares, buildings and arches. It also has tons of restaurants and shopping. We stopped for a drink at a patio bar and wandered around taking in the sights. We also stumbled into some kind of Portugese wine festival which of course we stopped at and sampled some good wine from the various vendors.
So we fire up the app, go to the stop we think we are supposed to be at and patiently wait to get on the bus with the number it tells us to. It eventually arrives and we get on. After a couple stops I slowly have the feeling that something is horribly wrong. And it is because we are going completely the opposite direction. Some combination of embarrassment and panic sets in and I tell Trista we need to get off and head back. It had gotten fairly late in the day at this point and so we both decided Belem was not in the cards. Instead we decided to slowly take the subway back, stopping at a few random stops and take in the sights and eventually find someplace to eat dinner.
The first couple stops make Lisbon seem quite nice especially when out of the crush of the tourist area we started in. Nice parks, Cafe and shop lined streets and relatively quiet to where we had come from. We eventually make it back towards central Lisbon, deciding on a seafood restaurant, O Tabuas, with an outdoor patio. We order the mixed fish for two and some white wine. I am an adventurous eater and this meal was right in my wheelhouse as when the meal arrives it is 8 large fish with heads and eyes and scaled and skin still attached. I know there were mackeral but honestly couldn't tell you what the other kinds of fish were. I was too hungry at this point to really care. I can tell you that it was fantastic. The whole bill with 5 glasses of wine between us came to 25euro which is an incredible value.
We then decided to wander some more and stumbled into one of the most famous drink vendors in Lisbon. Ginjinha is a sweet relatively low proof alcohol that is full of cherries that the alcohol soaks in. It is very sweet and a perfect after dinner drink. Ginjinha Bar Lisbon has been open since 1840 in the same spot where we bought our drinks that evening. It is a tiny hole in the wall that has a line of people waiting to get a shot of the famous liqour. It costs 1.20 euro.
After this it is time to head home and we decide to catch one of the trams home. These awesome streetcars have been in operation since 1873 and are a must for some of the shorter trips you take as Lisbon is incredibly hilly.
The gameplan for day 2 is to head to Sintra. It is essentially a suburb of Lisbon with a quaint town and home to both a Moorish castle and the Pena Palace which is a 19th century Romanticist palace. To get there you take a train from central Lisbon for about 45 minutes. Now when you get to the train station in Sintra you are in town but you are still probably 2000 feet or so below the main reason you are there which is to visit the Palace and take in the stunning views of Lisbon and the surrounding areas. You have 3 choice to get up the hill. Walk a very steep winding road, tuk-tuk, or bus. We opted for the bus which worked fine but I will say that they are very crowded which does not make the actual trip up and down the mountain very pleasant.
First stop was the moorish castle which is on the mountain side. I did think it was neat but really was somewhat of a disappointment to me. Maybe it is just because we have been to Scottish castles recently but I probably could have just skipped this part of the trip and been perfectly fine.
Pena Palace is just up the road and what neither of us realized is that when you get to the entrance there is still about a 3/4 mile walk up a very steep slope to actually get up to the palace itself. It was unseasonably hot in Portugal while we were there so while the trek up the hill wasn't the worst thing ever (Trista would disagree to that statement haha!) it was far from pleasurable. But once you get to the stop the views of both the palace itself and the view from the top of the mountain is stunning. I personally would highly recommend going even though it is quite the process to get out there.
On the way back from Sintra we ended up sitting across from this elderly couple on the train (it was super cramped!). They happened to be from Santa Fe, New Mexico so we had quite a bit to chat about since we have spent a decent amount of time in the last year and a half in New Mexico. They were the nicest couple! Sometimes you happen upon genuinely nice people in your travels and they were no exception. Dennis and Dixie from Santa Fe, thank you for the wonderful company!
That evening back in Lisbon we had dinner at O Chiado which is a traditional Portugese restaurant in Baixa-Chiado which is a slightly less touristy area right down the street from our AirBNB. We had the salted cod and a pork dish, some starters and wine from Douro Valley up in northern Portugal. Overall the meal was very good (though if you aren't a salt person, the cod, as the title suggest, is very salty). The service was excellent and friendly.
From there we took the tram back to our AirBNB and called it a night. We had a train trip to Porto the next morning to take us to the next stage of our adventure.
Comments
Post a Comment