Four Months In Spain with Tim 'n Laura: Lisbon, a Pleasant Surprise

Our next stop on our trip around Spain & Portugal was Lisbon. Honestly we weren’t expecting much from this city, me even less than Laura. After seeing such wonderful places as Granada and Ronda, plus our incredible time in Salema, I didn’t really think we would find much of interest in Lisbon. Especially since the guidebooks didn’t really talk too much about it.

Lisbon after dark

Turns out though that Lisbon is a very pretty city with some great history. Way back when, it was Portugal that discovered some very important shipping routes, and controlled much of the seas. Since then they have lost most of everything, but what is left are some great monuments to their past explorers and some incredible castles. Our next post will show you some shots from Sintra, a small city right next to Lisbon that was amazing, but for now we will focus on the two days we spent in Lisbon.

Neat ruins of old church (Convento do Carmo - destroyed in earthquake 1755)

We arrived late the first night and only had time to go out to dinner. Our dinner was fun though, since we went to a restaurant that had live Fado performers, which is traditional folksy melancholy music of old Spanish sounding guitars. The food wasn’t great, but it was fun overall, and we got to see some really neat city riding around in the cab.

Fado singers

Nasty Fado food

The next day we spent going on a walk through the city that our guidebook recommended. The walk didn’t work too well since a bunch of the things were closed, but we got to visit the institute of port that regulates the Port standards for Portugal. I am referring to Port wine, and they had over 300 different samples. We tried a combined 6, and were glad to stop there since we are not huge Port aficionados, and because it’s fortified 22% alcohol rate went to our heads and just made us sleepy.

Laura sampling Port

Us taking a nap after the Port kicked in

Me wishing Candido and Truman were with me so that we could enjoy a cigar

After that the next recommended stop was the oldest brewery in Lisbon, and that didn’t help either. I ordered a beer and without asking they assumed I wanted the large one. I was dragging a bit after that place, but we persevered on and finally ended up in St. Georges castle, an 18th century castle first build by the Moors. I have come to the opinion that the Moors were pretty cool, as most of their castles and palaces have been even nicer than the newer castles.

Big beer that I wasn't ready for...

Fun city trolley

View from Moorish Castle

In the castle

Laura over the moat

The next day we went to Sintra, but as I am going to cover that in the next post I will jump ahead to Belem, the part of the city we went to on our third and final day in Lisbon.

Not too much to say here, I will just post some pictures. We saw some neat stuff, but we are getting pretty tired or walking all over the place and so some of the enjoyment has gone out of it. Our favorite part was the Monastery of Jeronimos, where we got some incredible pictures. Other neat places were the monument to the Discoveries, and the Belem tower.