Friday, March 14th
On a whim, we took a last minute trip to Portugal. We had heard from a group of friends that it was one of their favorite countries they'd visited since being in Europe, so we jumped at the opportunity when Nick got his leave approved. We had less than 72 hours in Portugal, so we decided to make the most of it. Our tentative itinerary was to visit Sintra, Lisbon, and then Nazare.
We drove 4 hours to Milan and then took a quick hop over to Lisbon. We jumped on the metro at 7pm and went directly to our hotel to drop our things off. The metro was surprisingly clean. There was hardly a speck of dust on the tracks! Even the people in the train smelled clean! To this day it is one of the best metro systems I've been in.
Try and find some dirt there! I dare you! :P
From our hotel, we quickly made our way to the restaurant SR Fado de Alfama. They were ranked #14 of over 2000 restaurants in Lisbon on Tripadvisor.
There's so much I could say about this restaurant. The owners welcomed us with open arms as we walked in. There were only 5 tables with families from Sweden, Norway, South Korea, Brazil and Italy. They called us, "California" whenever they spoke to us. Haha!
Duarte, the man pictured with the guitar on the right, is the owner. He's married to Ana Marina - the woman standing and singing in the photo. Before they performed, Marina made our gourmet food while Duarte waited on tables, and then the lights dimmed and they started playing Fado.
Fado is traditional Portuguese music. It means, "fate." The songs are quite emotional. They are about love or loss. Here Duarte and Ana Maria's daughter is singing. Their daughter had an amazing voice. She was on the Portuguese version of American Idol a few years ago.
At one point, they asked each group from each country to stand up and sing a song from their own country. Nick wanted to sing, "Country Road," by John Denver. When he stood up, Duarte handed him the guitar. Everyone joined in, but no one knew the words. It was so much fun! Nick's still talking about that experience!
There was a large group of men from Norway next to us. They kept standing up and giving toasts to the restaurant. (They were slightly inebriated.) Nick kept telling me that he wanted to give a toast too. He never did...until that night at 2am while he was sleeping!!! Haha! He said very clearly, "Ladies and Gentlemen I want to give a toast, to the short ones and the tall, to the big ones and the small." Apparently, he REALLY wanted to give a toast at that restaurant! Haha! He immediately went back to snoring. I burst out laughing in our pitch black hotel room. I repeated it several times, so that I wouldn't forget to tell him the next morning. We've been married for 6.5 years and I've never known that he could talk in his sleep.
We really had such a fun time at that restaurant. I would go back to Portugal just to sit at SR Fado's again.
The walkway's had these beautiful stones and designs in them all over Portugal.
The next morning we got up early to get started on our day to Sintra. Our hotel couldn't have been in a better location. It was close to a funicular, train, and metro station.
This obelisk was just outside our hotel doors.
We grabbed a quick drink at Starbucks (such a treat) and walked through this beautiful train station. Sintra was just a 45 minute ride away!
I couldn't be happier! It was a beautiful day! I was traveling and I had Starbucks drink in my hand!!
....until....
We hadn't been in Sintra for more than 5 minutes when I tripped on uneven pavement, went flying, and completely broke my shoe. No big deal, right? Our day only consisted of hiking ALL DAY LONG. AND there are no shoe stores in the little tourist town of Sintra. AND even if they did have a shoe store hardly anyone carries my shoe size. ANNNND I only brought one pair of shoes with me on this trip!! What was I going to wear the other 2 days in Portugal? These thoughts went through my head in a split second, and I immediately burst into tears. I might have also had a few choice words. I had done so much planning for this day and trip.
Nick thought it was pretty funny that I was having a complete meltdown, so he captured the moment with this picture. (which I think is pretty funny now) He gave me his sandals to wear, and told me he would walk barefooted that day. I think I cried even harder knowing I had married such a sweet man. When we got into town we asked if there were any stores with ANY shoes: mens or women's. After a many failed attempts someone directed us to a store they described as "really expensive." They were right; it was really expensive and it had shoes! We were greeted by walls of Burberry purses. The saleswomen said they didn't have any women's shoes in my size. They brought me some mens shoes to try on. They were hideous. Nick said he wouldn't even wear them. The last shoe they brought out was a Burberry sandal. It was a half-size too small, but they said they would give us a deal on it. And that is the story about how I got my first pair of designer shoes in the tiny tourist town of Sintra! :)
The yellow building is where my shoes came from. :)
I loved their phone booths here. I think I like them even better than the red ones in London!
Shopping (and crying) is hard work! We were starving after that, so we grabbed lunch at the local tapas restaurant. We were the only ones in the place and the waiter must have liked us because he kept bringing us food. I warned Nick that in Portugal they will charge you for appetizers that are on your table unless you tell them to take them away. But our waiter didn't charge us! He brought us 6 different types of cheese and wanted to know which our favorite was. (Later that day I asked Nick what his favorite part of the day was...he said the tapas bar.) Haha!
2 hours after we arrived in Sintra, we started our journey to the main sites. Our first stop was the Pena Palace. When we got to the ticket booth the man told us there was no way we could see all of the things we wanted to that day. It was 1pm and all the sites closed at 5pm. We wanted to see the Pena Palace, Moorish Castle and Quinta da Regaleira. I wanted to cry again. I knew I wouldn't be able to see everything because my dumb shoe debacle! We picked our top two places: Pena Palace and Quinta da Regaleira.
The entrance to the Palace...not too shabby!
I felt like I was at Disneyland!
When can I move in?
Yep, I feel perfectly at home here. :)
Why isn't there an base near here?
While walking through the palace, Nick and I kept referring to me as "My Lady." (With a British accent of course.)
The Moorish castle from Pena Palace.
Standing guard. :)
These bathrooms look pretty fancy! They even had tile on the toilets.
The king apparently used to listen to the opera in Lisbon from his phone in the castle. He was pretty high tech.
I loved how they brought the garden inside. The railing was made to look like a vine.
These cloisters and tiles were originally part of the sixteenth century Monastery.
I love the color of the doors!
I love that Portugal has such a unique style combo of Arabic and Spanish. Would that be called "Arabish?" Or would it be, "Spanabic," style?
Their tiles blew me away how detailed they were.
Nice comfy sofa in the garden. :)
The gardens cover hundreds of acres. We just saw a small portion of it. This was the Fountain of the Small Birds.
Nick tried to get a close-up picture of the black swan, but it just tried biting the camera. Haha!
Duck House
After our pleasant stroll through the gardens we walked over to the entrance of the Moorish Castle. We never went inside since we didn't have time, but it was fun seeing the outside!
After taking a bus back down the winding road to Sintra, we walked over to Quinta da Regaliera.
...Our first sighting of Quinta da Rageleira.
This property was built in 1910 in the last days of the Portuguese monarchy by Viscondessa da Rageleira. Antonio Moneiro known as, "Moneybags-Monterio," bought the house and had an Italian set-designer help design and build it to what it is today.
The gardens here are even more spectacular than the gardens at the Pena Palace. I still can't understand why Rick Steves doesn't highly recommend this place. There's secret passages and caves. It's like an adult playground! This would be an awesome place to play hide-and-seek!
Our view of the Moorish ruins from below at the Quinta. At this point, I might have still been pouting that I couldn't go see it. AND it didn't help that we found out that the man that sold us the tickets was wrong about the closing times. The sites actually closed at 6pm not 5pm, so we could have easily made it to the Moorish Caslte when we were up at the Pena Palace. DOH! *I'm not bitter or anything.* :)
"Repulzel, Repunzel let down your hair...." Nick said as he snapped this photo.
This was the entrance to the secret tunnels! (That are not-so-secret because they're listed on the map, but I don't think I would have found them without the map.)
Nick kept trying to scare me in the dark tunnels. :)
This is a 100-ft inverted underground "tower"....or what most of us call a well. :)
What you can't see from this photo is that I'm standing in an inch of water...in my new designer shoes! Ugh! Haha!:P
View from above...
Just outside the well you can step across these fun stepping-stones back into the caves.
After walking through the gardens, we took a quick tour through the main house. It wasn't nearly as impressive as the gardens.
I loved seeing the contrast between the Pena Palace and Quinta da Regaleira. Pena seemed like a castle made for Disney, and Quinta was a dark and mysterious estate. And I can only wonder what the Moorish castle would have looked like... :):P
We did a quick walk back through Sintra to the train station. I was a little more careful where I walked this time around. :)
When we arrived back in Lisbon after our trip to Sintra, we immediately headed to dinner at Xapuri. It was ranked #6 on Tripadvisor for restaurants in Lisbon. They had a Fusion tapas menu. Everything we ordered was delicious! The setting was like an old, small metro station with old doors hanging on the walls. (I forgot to get a photo.) We loved our experience! I don't usually make reservations at restaurants when we travel because it can sometimes feel limiting, but I'm so glad we did this trip. The food was so delicious!
This is the funicular that was near our hotel. It connects Rossio to the Bairro Alto, or "high neighborhood." It was here that Nick and I were offered drugs for the first time on our life. We weren't just offered once - we were offered them 11 times while we were in Lisbon! They kept saying, "You want hash?" Nick decided that maybe they were saying, "I like your mustache" to him.
Sunday, March 16
On Sunday we headed out really early to start our very first mini marathon (7.2 km) in Lisbon. The ONLY issue we had...was that we didn't sign up. Since we didn't find out Nick had leave until late, we didn't get a chance to sign up before they sold out. We took our chances and tried to run it anyway! We knew the starting point would be on the April 25th Bridge, which is almost a duplicate of the San Francisco Bridge.
We thought we would get a taxi to the start line, but we saw a few people with numbers on their shirts, so we asked if we could follow them. (In a totally non-creepy way.) They were some of the sweetest people I've ever met. There was Doris from China, Oma from France, and Moricio from Italy. They all knew each other from their neighborhood in Holland. We rode the metro to the train, and then walked about 3 km to the start line with them.
Here's Nick and Moricio stuffed like sardines in the train.
From right to left: Me, Nick, Doris, Oma and Moricio right before we started the race.
Nick and I had to pass through 2 security points on our way to the start of the race. Nick got stopped once, and I made it through. The security guard decided to let him go through since he said that his wife had already gone ahead. Haha! Phew!
On the second security point we kept our heads down and jogged through. It worked! We made it!!! We felt so sneaky!
The mini marathon and half marathon separated right before the start point. We shook hands and waved good bye to our new, sweet friends we'd made. I just wish I had gotten their last names to keep in touch with them!
After we passed through the start point, the mob of people still weren't moving faster than a walking pace. I had to wonder if all marathon's started like this. (?)
Since most people were walking it made it difficult to try and run, but it made for lots of photo ops!
This bridge was built in 1966. It's 1.5 miles long and 260 feet deep making it it the world's deepest bridge. The main difference between this one and the San Fran is that it has a lower deck for train tracks.
Finally everyone started jogging about half way down the bridge.
The helicopter was taking photos and videos of the race. Everyone on the bridge turned and waved as they flew over.
It was a warm day for the race. Nick and I were sweating bullets before we reached the end of this bridge. We had one water station where we grabbed a water bottle during the race.
There were bands playing all along our route.
We crossed the finish line at 7.2 km. There were about 100 security guards after the finish line. One of them saw that I didn't have a number on my shirt. He turned me right around and didn't let me enter the "runner's city." Nick came with me.
The "runner's city" had a huge area sectioned off for the people that actually signed up. It had games, free food, yoga classes and more! That taught us our lesson! Next time we'll have to sign up early for any marathons. :)
We sat in the park in the shade and stretched near these knitted stones.
To reward ourselves, we headed over to cafe Pasteis de Belem. It's been around since 1837. They're known for their pastel de bata. It's a yummy custard pastry. Only 3 people in the world know the recipe for this pastry!
Nick told the woman,"Graciath!" I kept telling him that Portuguese is a little different than Spanish. They say, "Obligado/a" for thank you.
It doesn't sound like a very easy language. It almost sounded like Russian and Spanish.
Nick approved of the pastries. He said it tasted like a croissant and creme brûlée combined. :)
Just across the street was the Monastery of Jeronimos erected in 1495. Nick wasn't able to go in because he was wearing a short sleeved shirt and running shorts, but I could!
I walked through and snapped a few quick photos.
Afterward we took a quick jaunt over to the Monument to the Discoveries.
Nick decided that if we were going to see any other monuments along the river that he wanted to take a segway. So for 7 Euro each, we got a segway for a half hour.
Haha! Nick thought he would pose in front of the Belem Tower.
At one point this tower was in the middle of the river. It was the last sight sailors saw as they shipped off to sea, and the first they saw when they returned.
I thought I'd pose too in front of the next monument: Museum of Combat.
Nick trying to fly. :)
At one point, we passed a group of men playing soccer, so we tried to join in. They started laughing hysterically at the idea of us playing on the segways.
On our way to return the segways we found a grassy area with a lot of hills. We decided to see what the segway could really do. I pushed the segway a little too hard trying to go up a steep hill and ended up eating it! I fell off and the segway rolled over my ankles. I was laughing hysterically. Nick recorded the whole thing. I don't think I'll be posting it any time soon tho. :)
We walked back over to the monastery to catch a bus back into Lisbon. I realized that the church was actually open now. They had been having a service when we went by earlier. I ran in really quickly.
Vasco de Gama was buried in this church!
We hopped on a packed bus back into Lisbon. There was no air circulating in the bus. A man behind me grabbed my backside to "brace" himself because he wasn't feeling well. We were all hot and tired from the race, and there was no air in this bus. We got off at the next stop just so we didn't have to ride any longer. We walked about another kilometer to the nearest metro station.
We were in much need of a shower, so we headed back to our hotel room. We quickly got dressed and headed back out to explore Lisbon.
I would like to say we caught the funicular up to Bairro Alto, but the conductor took an hour long break right when we arrived, so we walked up to Bairro Alto instead.
We wandered through the Bairro on a Rick Steves walking tour. I was most excited about seeing the Convento do Carmo. It's an old church that lost it's roof in the 1755 earthquake. That earthquake took out about a third of the city. All that's left are the walls.
Unfortunately, it was closed that day. I'm putting that and the Moorish Castle on my "must see" list for the next time we visit Lisbon. :)
We did get to see the Cafe A Brasileira. We stopped and had a coffee and second serving of pastel de nata. They were good, but not as good as the ones at Pasteis de Belem.
We moved our way toward the Chiado district. This elevator connects the Bairro Alto to the Chiado. It was built in 1902 by a student of Gustav Eiffel.
We strolled down the pedestrian street of Rue Augusta leading into the Praza do Comercio.
Praza do Comercio
We were able to see a car commercial being filmed as we looked for a trolley to get to Castelo de Sao Jorge.
Our trolley ride was short and it dropped us off at this panoramic view of the Alfama.
Next stop Castelo Sao Jorge!
We made it just in time to explore the castle and watch the sunset.
:O
I finally got to see a Moorish Castle! (Maybe not the one in Sintra) This was built in the mid-11th century.
What a great way to finish our day! We got to watch the sunset over the bridge we had run across that morning.
There were peacocks everywhere!
We were both starving at this point! We'd walked and run all over Lisbon, and we'd only had pastries and coffee! We headed to a burger joint recommended to us by some friends.
I loved seeing the train station at night on our walk to our restaurant.
We had some delicious burgers at Beef Burger Bar. The restaurant was cute and the service was good.
I can't even remember what I ordered, but I know it had bacon and it was delicious. Nick had foie gras on his burger. His tasted amazing!!
I've been trying to do some research on this statue outside of Sao Roque Church, but I haven't been able to find any info on this guy. He really wanted to give me his ticket though.
I think Nick and I went to bed around 9pm that night. We had a fun and VERY eventful day!
Monday, March 17th
We checked out of our hotel early and bee-lined it for Starbucks. I think this is the worlds least-busy Starbucks on a Monday morning at 8am. We were the only ones in there!
We went to the airport and rented a car for 13 Euro. We basically just paid for gas.
We took a nice drive up to Nazare - a sleepy little beach town that occasionally has 90+ foot waves. Nick was hoping to see some of these monster waves.
It was a quick hour and a half drive. It felt so nice to just sit and relax after hiking, running and walking everywhere for two days straight.
When we got to Nazare we parked on the water front.
Here's a place that has a room for rent!
This is also beach front property in Nazare.
We strolled the little streets until we found the funicular that lead us up to Sitio on top of the hill.
Sitio is a tiny town with a great view.
The women in these beach towns wear 7 petticoats. In the old days, they used to wear them as they waited on the beach for their sailors to return. They'd wear them around their feet, heads to keep warm. Now it's just the older generations that wear them. If a woman is in all black it means she's in mourning.
This woman was selling clothing and nuts. We bought a bag of pistachios from her for 3 Euro.
This area is known for ladies that sell mussels. They weren't out that day though.
This was the sign leading into the bathroom. Is that a men's restroom or a women's restroom?
We peeked inside the old church in Sitio.
There's not much to see in Sitio, so we headed back down to Nazare on the funicular.
We ate at a cute little restaurant on the boardwalk. We each ordered fish! They really don't offer much other than that. I had salmon and Nick ordered a yummy baked codfish and cheese dish. It looked so good!
These cute ladies were out getting the grill started for their restaurant.
We decided to drive back up to Sitio (a 2 minute drive) to see the castle on the point. From there you would normally get a great view of the waves.
...but there were no waves crashing that day! It was as calm as a lake.
We drove down to the beach so Nick could play a quick game of wave tag.
Eventually a wave caught him and drenched his clothes. So he decided to go for a swim..in his underwear. I'll spare you those pics. :)
He says the water was warm. :)
This was my version of wave tag. Haha! I know...I'm pretty extreme getting so close to those waves!
Our drive took us back through Sitio and Nazare. This house was located just behind the Bull Ring in Sitio.
These were the boats that were used years ago by the fishermen in this village.
This picture looks so awkward. I swear she was really nice, but I think she was also slightly blind.
They had fish drying out on nets. There were a lot of seagulls flying around eyeing these. They'd put nets to cover the fish as well so the seagulls wouldn't get them.
I had to snap one more pic of the cute ladies in their petticoats before our drive back to Lisbon.
We had such an amazing time in Portugal! I can't believe how much we fit into 3 days! I don't think I'll ever get the hang of Portugese. It's not an easy language, even if it is close to French and Spanish. I can't wait to see more of Portugal, but I really can't wait to see the Moorish Castle and Convento do Carmo. And I've learned my lesson about only bringing one pair of shoes on a trip! I'll never do that again!
See you soon Portugal! (I hope!)
