Lisbon

I had really weird (read: low) expectations for Portugal. I think because we were leaving right at the end of finals week and I was still working on take-home exams during the first day of our trip, afterwards we were heading to Greece, and then I had 2 more days in Amsterdam before heading home. My stress level pre-Portugal was incredibly high, and I almost didn’t want to go. There was so much I needed to get done between school, packing to head back to America, and trying to finish up last minute Amsterdam errands. Note to self: write a post about how to wrap up your study abroad experience because that kind of advice doesn’t exist right now! If you read my post about our trip to Delft, you know I was writing a paper on the train. I wrote the other paper on a train to and from the beach in Portugal. So, not the best start to a trip. This was coupled with the fact that when we arrived in Lisbon (late at night), we were not prepared. We hopped on a bus to the city center, which is what we always did, and I have never been more scared of a bus ride. We were zipping down windy, hilly roads and stopping at bus stops seemingly every 30 seconds. Tori and I were stretched across the back seat, hanging onto the bars and onto each other a few times. When we made it to Lisbon, we realized that Portugal is dead at night. Most other cities are still buzzing at night (when I arrived in Barcelona around midnight, it was still crowded and everything was open). So, we navigated the empty streets, nearly getting lost, climbing insane hills, and going to the wrong hostel, until we finally arrived at our real hostel. And let me say, I have never been more excited to see a hostel. It was clean, the receptionist was super helpful and friendly, despite not speaking perfect English, and he was so willing to help us out and tell us things to do in Lisbon.  As we fell right asleep into our empty hostel room, I was nervous and curios about what our two days in Lisbon would look like. And then, we woke up. As soon as we stepped outside the hostel, we started to fall in love with the city. All of the buildings are painted in bright or pastel colors, and our hostel was located just off of one of the main squares in the city. After breakfast (Portuguese bread is the most amazing bread you will ever have, and I consider myself a bread connoisseur) and a little souvenir shopping to fulfill our post card obsession, we headed just a block away to another big square, and both of us let out audible gasps. We had seen the square at night, completely empty, and we made a note to find it again. While nighttime Lisbon was unappealing, in the daylight, the square was filled with people, the fountains were spouting water, and trees blooming with purple flowers lined the square. We ran around, spinning in circles to capture every angle and detail with our cameras.  These are only a few of the million photos I took in the square, before we realized we had a whole city to see.  With no particular plan, we wandered around, until we stumbled upon this tower in the middle of the city. This is the Santa Justa Lift, and it is basically a fancy elevator that takes you up and gives you amazing 360 degree views of all of Lisbon. It costs about 5 euro to get in, which at first seems silly just to ride in an elevator, but it is definitely worth it!

The view of Lisbon’s coast. Time to get a little nerdy here, but the Portuguese were once the most powerful country in Europe in terms of shipping and trading. In the 15th century, the Portuguese  explored and established trade along the African coast, rounded the Cape of Good Hope,  colonized Brazil, explored the Indian Ocean,  established trade routes throughout most of southern Asia, and sent diplomatic missions to China and Japan. Navigation and trade built the Portuguese empire. 

Castela de Sao Jorge- we didn’t make enough time to head up to the castle (another excuse to come back to Portugal!) but the lift gave us a good enough view.

After coming down from the lift, we headed towards the sea for more exploring.

Clearly I was enjoying the sites. Lisbon ended up being very beautiful and detailed, with so many buildings painted in bright colors or covered in detailed, intricate, blue and white mosaic tiles. 

After a quick change of clothes, we hopped on a train (the same train where I wrote my essay!) to Cascais, pronounced “cash-kye-eesh.” It is about an hour west of Lisbon, and the train glides along the ocean the entire way, offering perfect views of the bright blue water.  Arriving in Cascais, we had planned to sit on the beach for a while, until we saw a man offering paddle board rides, so naturally we jumped on that (literally).   

After paddling around, we packed up and wandered around Cascais. While it was full of tourists, it is still an adorable little seaside town. 

For day two in Lisbon, we wandered a little, with the goal of heading farther west to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in all of Europe. 

This is the April 25th bridge. If it looks like San Francisco, that is because the bridge was modeled after the Golden Gate Bridge. Coincidentally, the same company (American Bridge Company) that built the San Fran-Oakland Bay Bridge (but not the Golden Gate) also built the April 25th bridge. 

We made a quick pit stop to see the Jeronimos Monastery. We didn’t have enough time to go inside, but we wandered along the street for a few minutes before catching our next train. 

Getting to Cabo da Roca was much harder than we thought. We had the whole afternoon, but it took forever to get out to Cascais, which is the farthest you can go on a train- after that, you take a bus. But in Cascais we were told that the next bus wasn’t for over an hour. Desperate, we hopped in a taxi line and asked how much it would be to drive to Cabo. When our driver responded that it would be less than 15 euro, we practically jumped into the car.

This ended up being the perfect way to see the coastline. The car drove through winding roads, up and over hills and mountains, giving occasional glimpses at the water. It also took us less than 20 minutes to arrive, and luckily, we were greeted by this view.

If you were to swim straight from that cross statue, you would hit Long Island. It felt strange to be directly across from New York yet so, so far away. It also felt strange to quite literally be on the edge of Europe. Cabo reminded us of the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, except significantly warmer and sunnier, but just as windy! 

I would love to be able to return to Portugal and explore more of the country! My old roommate just road tripped with her brother and I would love to be able to do something similar! Having a car and an international driver’s license would have been a blessing (and probably a curse sometimes). 

I had really low expectations for Portugal and ended up loving it. From what I saw it is a beautiful, old old old city full of color and history. But, after heading west we returned to Lisbon, ready to head off to the next stop on our whirlwind weekend!

In addition to writing about all my travels, I want to write up a few posts about how to survive studying abroad- basically all the tips I wish I had a few months ago. What would you guys like to see or like to know about study abroad? Let me know!