So this is Lisbon…
When you’re starting in London and planning to travel through Europe, you can go absolutely anywhere! Which is great, but also makes it hard to decide where exactly to start. For days, we threw around different ideas, and struggling to make a decision – until Lincoln suggested Lisbon. We had been scheduled to visit Lisbon last summer but aborted after we learned that the Pope, along with over a million teenagers, was scheduled to be in Lisbon at the same time as us. Sound like your kind of fun? Not ours, so we went to Porto in northern Portugal instead and had an absolutely amazing time. Given that we’d been so close to visiting Lisbon last year and have heard so many great things about it, Lincoln’s suggestion helped us get over the hump and finally pick a place to start!
We flew from Manchester (which we have dubbed the “Ohio of England”) to Lisbon and landed after dark. We had booked an apart-hotel right in the heart of Lisbon that had rave reviews. What the reviews somehow failed to mention was that the mattresses (and the couch for that matter) were nearly as hard as the 500-year-old exposed stone walls in the building. Seriously. We thought about booking a new apartment the next day (and forfeiting the week’s rent we had already paid) but we sucked it up and made it through the trip – although we did leave 2 days early.
While everything we had read suggested we were in the ideal neighborhood, it seemed overwhelmingly touristy to us – being accosted by touts at the various restaurants shoving laminated menus in our faces as we walked by. We especially enjoyed the clown that forced “free” balloon animals into the kids’ hands and then demanded money. But by the end of our week, we had explored a little more of the city and discovered some more enjoyable areas away from the tourist hub.
We remembered on this trip that we’re not fans of Portuguese food. During our week in Portugal last year, we ate a lot of Italian food, and now we remember why. Lots of fish that was super fresh and decent, but we can only eat so much fish. Lots of fish and cheese fritters – not fish fritters, and cheese fritters, but fish-and-cheese fritters. And everything was just . . . fine, at best. Even the restaurants with 4.8 ratings on Google (out of 5). We suspect these reviews were dominated by tourists pouring off the of huge cruise ships – guess we don’t have the same expectations that they do. At least the coffee was good!
Lisbon is HILLY. We walked at least 15,000 steps each day, and our peak day was 72 flights of stairs. We walked to the top of the hill behind our apartment, on which perched the Castle of St. George. Lincoln was excited to be able to perch on actual cannons:
Apparently, Lisbon’s aquarium is rated the best in the world. Our first day there was rainy, so the perfect way to spend a few hours indoor. It was really cool – but also really crowded. The kids got matching sea otter (which they have nicknamed “river dogs”) t-shirts to remember the experience. Now let’s see if we can fit them in our already overstuffed suitcases!
We took a day trip to Sintra to see the hilltop palaces where the royalty went to escape the summer heat of Lisbon, as well as a very cool Moorish Castle. The castle was particularly cool – we were able to walk along the tops of the entire castle, on the edge of the hilltop – something that would NEVER be allowed in the US. (To be fair, it felt pretty unsafe at some points, given how high up we were and the complete lack of safety railings.)
We also went to the seaside town of Cascais one afternoon, about 45 minutes from Lisbon. Very cute, very different vibe than Lisbon – way more relaxed, and far fewer restaurant touts (but still some). We had a surprising good Mexican lunch (Mexican isn’t much of a thing in Europe, given how far away actual Mexico is).
Our last night in town was probably the highlight. We left the kids home with pizza and a movie and discovered a fabulous little cocktail bar just up the (very steep) hill from our apartment. The place was on a narrow cobblestone street behind a curtained doorway and seated maybe 10 people total. We grabbed seats at the bar and chatted a bit with the bartender while he made us some pretty great cocktails to end our time in Lisbon on a high note.
All in all, we’re glad to have experienced Lisbon, but it wasn’t what we had expected at all. Onward!