Sintra & Lisboa

Ok this trip started off crazy, so I am going to start with that.


Tuesday:

Went to the library(which I never go to) with the 4 people(3 girls and 1 other guy) from the group I was going with to make hostel reservations. We tried 2 or 3 hostels before we found one with openings for 5 people.We put all the information in and clicked book, but the confirmation page didn't come up, did we pay or not, none of us knew. So we went through a few more hostels and tried to book a second one, same thing fail. Then a third fail. So we finally gave up and were also kicked out of the library cause it was closing, they even have a security guard, i don't know why.

Thursday:
Our bus left at 2:30 here is a quick timeline.

1:00 Get out of my last class of the day
1:30 Take bus and arrive home
1:30-1:45 Pack and eat quickly then leave house
2:00 Halfway there realize I forgot my camera and tickets
2:00-2:10 Powerwalk back to my house grab camera, batteries, and tickets
2:10-2:27 Powerwalk really fast/Dead sprint to get to the bus Station past 2 friends and my host mom
2:20ish Drop camera(don't really know where) make big decision whether to go to Lisbon or lose camera, decide camera and see it laying on sidewalk across the street. Thank god!
2:30 Arrive at bus sweating like crazy and my friends look at me weird then laugh.

We stopped at Badajoz then Changed buses and got into Lisbon around 7ish.
We took the metro to our hostel.(By the way the Train/Bus/Metro Station in Lisbon is insanely cool modern architecture and the metro tunnels are huge and beautifully decorated with mosaic murals.)

We got to the hostel and met quite possibly the nicest person in Portugal, our hostel manager. We got there she let us go to an ATM to get money to pay, after letting us in our room. We got back and she told us where good places to go to eat and get drinks were. We then went walking around(this was at night). Found a huge plaza, walked by the waterfront, stopped at some really cool rolling chairs that had trees planted in them. Then we went up a huge hill found another cool little plaza with a guy providing some free drum music. Hung out there for awhile decided to head back to the hostel to figure out where we were going next. We went down a hill and stopped at a cool lookout point(miradura) over the city. We got back to the hostel and found out where she had told us to go was where we just were. So we went through the metro tunnel, and up 4 escalators, yea it is a big hill, to get back. We went walking around some more, but didn't find anything so went back to the hostel and hung out in the lounge(with bean bag chairs!)for awhile before going to bed.

Friday:
Got rolling around 10:30, everyone was tired. We headed out to Belém, a part of the city. Another hostel employee told us where to go and what to see and how to get there. So we took Tram 15 there. The trams are really old in Lisbon and go throughout the whole city, seriously the whole city) on the same roads as the buses and cars, but this one is popular so it was newer/nicer. Anyways we got to ride that for free, there was a ticket machine on-board but nobody seemed to bother with it, so we didn't either.

First, We went to Jeronimos Monastery, which is really really old, but also really really beautiful. We went into the "chapel"it was small cathedral size and had some cool ceiling decorations, see pics. Then we bought a combined ticket for that and Belém tower for 10 euro(really cheap). We went into the monastery and marveled at its white stone(possibly marble) beauty. Each column and gargoyle were different and the decorationjwas so intricate, see pics.

Then we went out the Discoverers Monument after walking through a cool garden. There is a huge carved monument with all the Portuguese explorers and their supporters such as Vasco de Gama and Henry the Navigator. Also it is right on Lisbon Harbor/Bay so we could see the ocean as well as the April the 24th bridge(think Golden Gate but bigger) and the Cristo Rei statue like the one in Brazil.

From there we decided to walk to the Tower of Belém. Then it decided to rain...hard. It was so windy it was blowing side, our left sides were soaked, despite umbrellas, and our right sides were completely dry. Anyways as we approached the tower and the rain quit, so we crossed the questionably stable bridge over part of the ocean to the tower. The tower is really indescribable, pics, but we looked around there climbed the narrow(one-way staircase to the stop. There you could see a lot and we got some good pictures, especially out of the tiny little tower rooms which we played in.

After that we stopped and ate some pita things...cheap and delicious. Then we went to the world famous Pasteleria de Belém, that has been making these delicious custard pastries since 1836ish(i am pretty sure the outdates the existence of Kansas as a state). Anyways we could a few of those and they were hot put cinnamon and powdered sugar on them, they were awesome.

We then stopped by the hostel asked about the Parque de Nacoes(Park of Nations) where the 1998 World exhibition was. It was by the Train/Bus/Metro Station there we saw some really cool buildings and gardens that we walked through along the seaside. We also saw the Vasco de Gama bridge, long long bridge over the harbor/bay and the Vasco de Gama tower, not really sure what is for.

Then we went walking the other way and it started raining of course we were by water it just had to. But it was worth it. We saw a jumping fish by this dock, then a full on rainbow, very bright, came out with a faint double rainbow around it. Pretty sweet, but my batteries were dying, so I only got a few pics. After that we to get groceries for dinner that night, went back to the hostel and ate, and went to bed soon after.

Saturday:

We got started early, of course asked our super nice hostel hosts what to do and how to get there and then headed to St. George's Castle, which as the top of one of the hills and Lisbon so visible almost everywhere. We had heard the castle was hard to find, other people from our group said it took them two hours to find it. We found it in about 30 minutes. We stopped at a miradura along the way snapped some photos then went to the castle. There we explored the castle, named a few of the many cats there(examples Gypsy Cat and Lazy Cat), and watched a peacock for a bit. The nwe headed to the Saturday market which was gigantic, but basically gypsies peddling their good as well as some stuff that was probably stolen, with a few legit vendors mixed in. The girls bought some stuff then we headed to the train station to go this place one of the girls heard about called Sintra where there is a Moorish Castle.

We took the train(basically an above ground metro that runs on a longer line) for 40 minutes to Sintra. There I decided to walk and the others took a bus. They had heard the hike was 45min uphill, because the castle is on a mountain. After getting mildly lost due to poor signage and maps I made it up to the castle, apparently 5-10 minutes after they had got there, not bad. From there we went into this sweet awesome best ever castle. It is basically a huge walled in area on top of a mountain(some say the walls are comparable to the great wall of china. We climbed, explored, and enjoyed ourselves there for awhile before we all walked down and headed back to Lisbon.

The others were hungry after we got back so they ate, and one of the girls and I headed back to the hostel, on the way I bought a Barcelona(favorite fútbol(soccer) team) Messi(awesome player 4 goals in one game 3 in 20 min) jersey for 12 euro. At the hostel the super awesome nicest lady in Portugal told us to come down in a few minutes for traditional Brazilian drinks. We rested for a bit, ate, and then went there to get the drinks they were really good. There we met some Norwegians and talked about the ash cloud among other things. Later on, we talked to a guy from Belgium that was really interesting and we learned a lot about Belguim from him which was cool.

Sunday:
Got up early to catch the bus back. We had a long layover in Badajoz, so we went and explored the area, but it wasn't too interesting. And that was the trip to Lisbon.