So...How's the Port in Portugal?

Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon is a city I learned essentially nothing about while growing up or even during my time in Spain, despite my proximity to it.

It's the capital of Portugal, which lies on the western side of Europe tucked against the Atlantic. The country is entirely engulfed by Spain. As such, there is a bit of rivalry between the two, although the edges of sheer size and economic wealth clearly go to their larger neighbor. There are definitely overtones of elitism when the Spanish talk about the Portuguese.

But after having now spent a weekend in Lisbon, I am thoroughly impressed. Lets start with the basics: the official language is Portuguese, which is similar to Spanish in writing but very different when spoken. One from our group claimed it resembled German. The country is small and has a population of approximately 10 million, a third of which live in the greater Lisbon area.

I walked out of airport to find it surprisingly warm; at least 10 degrees warmer than Madrid. The people are very accommodating to foreigners and most speak several languages, likely because Portuguese doesn't get them very far in other countries. And everything (food, lodging, taxis, etc) were very cheap. And as the pictures will show, the city's beauty is absolutely first class.

This was my first view when I stepped off the airport shuttle in Rossio square. A very beautiful welcome indeed!
Even though it was early December, they had already put up their Christmas decorations, including impressive lights on most of the main streets and squares. This was taken only a block from our hostel in the Baixa district, which is the main center for shopping.
And this was the view from the balcony in our hostel room, which was only 15€/night. Just one of the many Portuguese amenities which was a bargain.
These are the "elevator trams" which take people up and down the various steep hills in the city for a small cost.
This is the popular nightlife scene in Barrio Alto, located a short walk from the downtown area. All the streets were blocked off with people walking around or hanging out. There were occasional police, but I saw a guy roll and smoke a joint directly next to one so clearly the rules are relaxed.

It was interesting to see because people would duck into a bar to buy a drink, then keep right on wandering. It seemed more like a frat party than a downtown scene, and I heard just about every language imaginable as we walked around.
At one point we walked past someone with a Big-Gulp sized cocktail, so I stopped to inquire where she bought it. She said there was a place right around the corner which sold mammoth & cheap drinks, so we immediately rounded the corner and headed in.

Boy was she right. The place had only a handful of choices, but they were running specials on mojitos and dark mojitos that night. And they were surprisingly strong - see the picture below for what I mean. Those are two bottles of rum being poured into a mojito with hardly any other ingredients. Why is that guy in the background smiling? Because he knows the next one is his and it only costs 4€.
Despite the bartender's best efforts, we managed to survive the rest of the evening by walking around and taking in the sights. We even managed to awake early and start a full day's worth of sightseeing.

First on our trip was the Terreiro do Paço (Palace Square). It's located near the waterfront (the ocean is barely visible in the background), and it used to be the location of the royal palace until the 1755 earthquake which destroyed much of the city.
And as you can see, it's particularly beautiful when lit at night.
Of course Portugal is famous for its ports, so we made sure to try them whenever possible. This first one is from a port bar with 200+ types available. Unfortunately we arrived right before close, so we were only able to have a glass. I fell in love with like the giant wine glass on the right.
We later perused a specialty port & wine store and saw these bottles. They were a bit out of price range, but I was impressed to see the various dates (1938 for the one on the far left, for instance).
Our first stop in the morning wasn't planned but turned out to provide some of our favorite views of Lisbon. We were lucky enough to walk by and find almost no one there (likely because it was still so early). From the street, it looked like a little courtyard or park.
But on the far side it had some spectacular views, like this one.
This is looking uphill towards the castle (left side at the top of the hill), which was our next destination.
And one more overlooking part of the city and the Atlantic.
After our brief (but beautiful) stop, we headed into the Castle of São Jorge. Originally occupied by the Moors, it was conquered in the 12th century by the first king of Portugal and later held to repel future invasions.

This is looking at the outside walls and bridge.
For some reason, there were a large number of stray cats (not pictured) within the grounds. We must have seen at least 10, although after awhile it became difficult to avoid double-counting.

This was taken while walking around the outer grounds which overlook both the city and the Atlantic.
Perched on the highest hill in the district, it too has a great view of the city.
It started to rain so we stopped at some covered tables near the gift shop to enjoy a bottle of wine. The weather quickly cleared and we were on our way, but not before having fun with some of the local peacock.
All that bird chasing worked up quite an appetite, so we stopped by a local restaurant on our way back into town to grab a bite to eat. This was a real local joint with only the owner and ourselves in it. After discovering we were Americans, he gave us the "English version" of the menu, which had clearly been drafted on a type-writer with prices in whatever the old Portuguese currency was before the euro. We had a hard time believing the entrees cost 15,000+ each.

I ordered the food in Spanish, not really having an idea of what type of fish was what. Much to my surprise, we each got a whole fish (head, tail, and all) like this one! It was really good, but picking out all the bones became tedious after awhile.
Also one funny side note - this restaurant was also the only time when someone attempted to steal from us. A couple came in, walked over to our table (again we were the only ones), and the guy tried to hand me a flier. I waved him off, but he persisted and kept pushing me to get me to take it. On the 3rd or 4th time he tried it, I noticed his hand slowly moving closer to my camera which was in the middle of the table. I reached out and snatched it, which caused him to run for the door. I thought about giving chase but decided it probably wasn't worth it.

We finished our meals (each costing about 8€) and hopped on a metro heading West. About 20 minutes later and 6km away we came to our destination of Belém, which has a famous monastery, tower, palace, and pastry shop.

Our first (and my favorite) stop was the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Hieronymites Monastery). This is the outside of the monastery and adjoining cathedral.
One of my favorite sites from the entire weekend was the inside courtyard which contains two-story cloisters. The detail of the carvings is amazing even up close, and I found the entire place to be absolutely gorgeous.
And this is looking down one of the side hallways.
And more of the architecture on the second floor.
The inside of the adjoining cathedral was also quite breathtaking. I much preferred it to the Sé (Lisbon's main and oldest cathedral, not discussed because I wasn't impressed), which is odd because the other normally receives all the praise.
We were strolling through in late afternoon, which happened to be a great time that day because a small orchestra and choir were warming up for a performance. I'm often on the fence about classical music, but I admit this was impressive.
And here's a small video of what they were playing.

On the way out, we passed by a 100+ people dressed in tuxes and elegant dresses, waiting to be let into the cathedral. Apparently they were the paying customers of the performance. It was a very odd contrast - here we were walking out wearing faded jeans and t-shirts, each looking at each other.

About a quarter mile away is the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries). It was built to honor the Portuguese who took part in the Age of Discovery in the 15th & 16th centuries. To a tourist like me, it's an impressive 52 meter tall slab of concrete with some amazing sculpture detail and a great view of the city. Each one of those people at the base are larger than real-life and are specific historical figures. I won't bore you with the list, although if you want to see it click here.
This is the view standing next to it, and in the background is the "25 de Abril Bridge" (25th of April), which also happens to be the largest suspension bridge in the world. It's often compared to the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco because of its appearance (even the same company made it).
The bridge used to go by a different name, but was changed to honor the date in 1974 which marks the Carnation Revolution. More can be read about it here, but it was a military coup which transitioned the country from a dictatorship to a democracy, ending the Portuguese empire.

And a little bit further down is the Torre de Belém (Belém Tower), which was built in the early 16th century to commemorate Vasco de Gama's expedition, who sailed around South Africa and discovered India. Later, it was used to defend the Tigus river (which runs east-west through all of Portugal and a good portion of Spain) and Lisbon itself. However, it fell to the Spanish in 1580 and was used mainly as a prison afterwards.
The view from one of the open windows, looking over the Tigus and suspension bridge mentioned before.
It is particularly beautiful when lit at night, as shown below (van Rooyen, 2007).
After we walked back, we decided to stop and enjoy the sunset at the Praça do Império, which are public gardens located next to the royal palace. One of my highlights of the trip was sitting there on a bench at dusk drinking a bottle of wine right next to where royalty live.
We then returned to our hostel for a quick shower and power nap (since we were running on about 4 hours of sleep), before we met up with another couple for dinner.

Taking a recommendation from my coworker, we hopped on a ferry which crossed the Tigus and took us into a small fishing village whose name I can't remember. The point was to see the river & bridge at night as well as experience a "true" Portuguese dinner experience by leaving Lisbon. The fog & rain prohibited us from experiencing the first, but he was dead on for the second.

While waiting & riding the ferry (maybe 45 minutes total), the four of us went through one bottle of wine and another one of port. We were feeling good as we disembarked and wandered around to find a restaurant.

We eventually stopped at a place with a reasonable menu (all entrees were under 10€) and some occupied tables. We were seated near the front, adjacent to a group of about 15 male Portuguese teenagers. They too were drinking, and since we were clearly outsiders they started talking to us. Of course no one in our group understood Portuguese, so what ensued was a back & forth in broken Spanish & English which was absolutely hysterical. We were trying to ask which wine was best, and they were responding by teaching us dirty phrases in Portuguese. I don't think we would have figured out what we were about to order if one hadn't started making obscene hand gestures.

After a few more bottles of wine and more inappropriate discussion, the teenagers left. Then some of the older middle-aged locals started coming up and chatting with us as well. One of them spoke some English, one was fluent in French (as was one in our group), and we all spoke some measure of Spanish. So now we were up to 4 languages being thrown around our table, with many rounds of drinks, lots of food, and a steady stream of wine. All conversations were friendly and ranged from politics (Bush and Obama of course), plus the Spanish/Portuguese rivalries. We found out later that one of the gentlemen was the owner.

We were having such a great time that we boarded the last ferry back to Lisbon (2am), and despite our best efforts to run up a huge tab, it only came out to 17€ per person! It was definitely one of my favorite experiences of the trip.

Back on the Lisbon side, we had one final adventure for the night when we found someone who had been drinking and had clearly been in a fight. He had a large cut above one eye and blood over his face, and since he looked like he needed some help we stopped, talked to him, and eventually got him into a taxi home. Exciting day!



The next morning we arose early (again) to head off to Sintra, a town located about an hour's train ride Northwest of Lisbon. Once there, one can take either a bus or hike to the main attractions which are located a bit outside the city. We opted for the bus.

Our first stop was the Palácio Nacional da Pena (Pena National Palace), which was originally a chapel constructed after a claimed apparition sighting of the Virgin Mary. It later became a small monastery but was reduced to ruins in the great earthquake of 1755. It remained destroyed for centuries until the young prince Ferdinand took a liking to it and decided to have it rebuilt. It then became a retrieve for the royal family until their exile in 1910.

On a clear sunny day, this is what it's supposed to look like .
And another one at sunset - clearly it has some aesthetic values.
Of course when we were there it was a typical San Francisco morning - heavy fog with a constant drizzle. So the pictures didn't turn out the best, but they're still good.

We were free to walk around the outside grounds and later took a tour of the inside. This is a view from one of the many side balconies.
And this one from the other side.
Fortunately for us it gradually cleared up as the day progressed, as shown by our next few stops.

The Castelo dos Mouros (Castle of the Moors) was built sometime in the 9th or 10th century, but fell to the Christian Portuguese in the 12th century. It too was abandoned for several centuries and restored in the mid 1800s.

Again, on a clear day, this is what the outer ramparts would look like (Lusitana, 2002).
There weren't many structures to see on the inside, but here was the view on our way in.
Some kind of courtyard near the entrance.
A neat ledge overlooking the estate.
Taken on the outer wall. Hidden in the foggy background is Sintra and even Lisbon, far off in the distance.
Taken at the bottom of that same outer wall looking up.
And to wrap up, I ran across this pic while writing this post and couldn't resist. It's a gorgeous shot of both Pena Palace on the left and the Moorish Castle on the right at sunset.
After leaving the castle, we waited for the bus until we discovered it had broken down. Since we were out of sites to see, we hiked several kilometers back to town. Fortunately for us it was all down hill.

Along the way we walked by this beautiful garden, although it was unmarked and not mentioned in any of our tour books.
Once back in town, our last stop was the Quinta da Regaleira (also known as "Palace of Monteiro the Millionaire"). As the name suggests, the land was purchased by the wealthy businessman Carvalho Moneiro as a place where he could construct intricate structures. Basically, I like to think of this guy as an early Huge Hefner.

As you can see, most of the grounds consist of walking paths and trees. But the place is huge, and although we walked briskly for 2 hours, we were not able to see everything.
This is just one example of the neat structures.
One of the walking paths.
Likely to be my favorite view of the estate. The green at the bottom is moss covering pond water, and those are stones to cross it. Plus there are caves that wrap around the back part. A really cool spot overall.
Taken on the bottom floor after following the stone steps into the cave entrance.
Another building to which I have no idea its name or significance.
This was listed as the site's most famous piece. From the outside it merely looks like a standard well, but this is the view looking straight down it. Instead of water, there is a spiral staircase which loops around the outer wall. And those are people standing at the bottom, who have come from another building via an underground tunnel system.
Alas, after this the park was closing and we had to leave.

We made it back to Lisbon and took it easy for our last night there, although we did go through another bottle of wine & port while hanging out in some of the city's famous squares.

The flight home was a story to itself. Lisbon to Madrid is a 55 minute flight, but unfortunately most of my next day was spent in the airport because my flight never materialized. 7 hours later it mysteriously lands and we board with no problem, but to this day I have no idea why it was so delayed. While waiting, I befriended three other American girls studying in Southern Spain, so the experience wasn't a total loss. But even so, it was still a fantastic weekend!

As always, many more pictures from Lisbon & Sintra can be found here.