Hola Todos!
This past weekend I got the chance to fall
in love with Portugal. Let me begin by
saying that if you ever have a chance to visit Lisbon, GO! Two days was not
nearly long enough to explore this amazing city, especially when you also visit
some of the smaller surrounding towns and cities, and you definitely should!
I went with a group that takes students
from the university on weekend bus trips, and since most of the JMU group
studying in Salamanca went on this trip, it was already bound to be a blast!
The trip included transportation to all the different cities and areas that we were
scheduled to visit as well as a room in a hotel, all for a reasonable price.
We left Salamanca around three on Friday
and arrived in Lisbon around 9 (we gained an hour thanks to the time zone
change). By the time we were all situated in our hotel rooms it was close to
10, but we were all pretty hungry, so we took the metro to the barrio alto,
which was an area of Lisbon with lots of bars and restaurants, to get food.
Despite the fact that none of us spoke Portuguese, the metro was fairly easy to
navigate. The restaurant we found in barrio alto was fairly expensive, but I
just ordered a side of rice and a glass of wine, so my meal didn't cost too much.
One difference between American and Portuguese restaurants: they charge you for
the “free” bread that’s put on the table at the beginning of the meal. And it
can get expensive! I didn’t eat any of the bread, so I wasn’t charged, but the
bread and butter that would have been free in the States cost two euros per
person.
The next day we had to be at the bus by
9:30 to travel to the first of our two excursions for the day—Sintra. Sintra is
a small town near Lisbon with amazing historical sites. The town itself was
small, but beautiful. Many of the buildings were painted bright colors of
yellow and blue, and the ones that weren’t were a crisp white. The streets were
lined with open air cafes, ice cream parlors, and various shops. I could have
spent half a day just wandering the streets of Sintra, and I probably would
have if it weren’t for the castles on the hills overlooking the town. There are actually quite a few castles in
Sintra, but two were more appealing to me than the rest. A short bus ride up
the winding streets of the hill took us to the start of two separate and
distinct castles overlooking Sintra. The first was the Palacio de Pena, a brightly
colored Romanist palace, and the more popular tourist destination of the two. The
second was the Palace of the Moors, a medieval Moorish castle. Unfortunately,
we only had about three hours total to spend in Sintra, allowing only enough
time to see one of the castles up close. I chose to see the Moorish palace. The
palace reminded me of the walls around a story tale castle. The castle wound through
the hill, its grey stone stairways extending higher and higher up the hill to
provide the best vantage of the surrounding cities and the coast. The view from
here was truly magnificent.
After we left Sintra, we headed to a beach
town called Cascais. I spent most of my time here just relaxing on the beach. The
weather was warm, but breezy, so sand kept blowing in my face and all over my towel.
Also, though the Atlantic was beautiful to look at, the water was ice
cold, so I only waded in up to my knees. Still, even with too much wind and too
cold water, you can't go wrong with a day at the beach!
Saturday night I went out to a club in Lisbon called Urban Beach. It was really cool because the club was located right on the water, so it had a nice view. The music was surprisingly good considering I don't usually like house music much, but they played a good mix of foreign songs I've never heard and familiar ones from the US. It was fun, but it was also a really late night, so I was pretty tired the next day. That didn't stop me from doing some last minute sightseeing in Lisbon before we left though!
Sunday we walked around two different areas
in Lisbon—first a large plaza area and second a waterfront area of the city. The plaza
area was really beautiful! Many of the buildings were a lighter almost pastel color and there were trees with lilac colored flowers in bloom all around the plaza. In the middle of the plaza was a large fountain. My favorite part of this plaza, however, was the tiling on the ground. The tiles were black and white and arranged in a wiggly, swirvey pattern that made the ground look like it was two different heights. After we left the plaza we went to a
waterfront section of Lisbon with a large and stunning convent, a monument to
Portuguese navigators with a great view from the top, and a bridge that looked suspiciously
like a smaller, less grand (and less red) version of the Golden Gate Bridge in
San Francisco. As it turns out, the bridge was designed after the Golden Gate
and was made with the same materials. The San Francisco comparisons didn’t stop
there though. Lisbon also had cable cars, colorful buildings, and was built
on the hills (although nowhere near as steep as Lombard
Street).
All in all, it was a great trip, and I’m really glad I decided to deal
with the six hour bus ride in order to see a little bit of Portugal.
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| Bright colored buildings in Sinatra, Portugal |
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| If you look at the mountain top, you can see the Moorish Castle I visited |
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| Me on the Moorish Palace with the Palacio de Pena in the background |
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| A cool wall in Cascais. I saw lots of murals and art on the sides of buildings in Portugal. |
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| The other side of the Atlantic Ocean! |
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| The Plaza in Lisbon |
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| The convent in Lisbon. The line was too long, so I didn't get to go inside. |
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| NOT the Golden Gate Bridge |
Hasta Luego!
Aubrey
P.S. Sorry about the lateness of this post.
I wanted to get it up by Monday night, but I’ve been fairly busy and I had a
lot I wanted to say, so it took a while to get it all together.
