I finally got around to the next update!! Before travelling abroad, Portugal was somewhere I was really excited to explore and now I’ve spent 5 days in Lisbon, so here’s my take on the city.
Overall I’ve had a great time in Lisbon, but a lot of that is attributed to the people i’ve met and adventures shared rather than enjoyment of the city. The city of Lisbon hasn’t been my absolute favourite. But don’t get me wrong I did enjoy it.
As I arrived in Lisbon, I made my way through customs and immigration pretty seamlessly but it was when I went to take the bus into the city and that bus didn’t exist that I got a bit of a fright. On the website of the hostel that i booked it had a page outlining the best ways to reach the hostel from different locations including the airport. It suggested I take aerobus 1 which would take me exactly where i needed in about 25 minutes. I also briefly googled aerobus 1, and it came up but i couldn’t seem to book my ticket online. It did clearly state that you could just buy your ticket as you got onto the bus so that was my plan. But for the life of me I could not find the bus stop I needed. I was carrying around all my luggage, and it was at least 28 degrees, so I went back into the airport to ask at the desk. It was enlightening when they told me that that service doesn’t exist, it hasn’t operated in over 4 years. This was all fine, I asked what alternate transport option they would suggest and got on a very similar bus not long after. But in that moment I remember feeling very overwhelmed, it was a new city, it was so hot, I was tired. So perhaps that intro to Lisbon is why i found myself not in love with the city when so many others were.
But regardless, the city is beautiful, walking within the old streets and buildings, it is nothing short of stunning. I had been warned about the hills, but i did not take those warnings seriously enough. The hills and steps were ROUGH. They are steep and endless. The cobble stone streets are so slippery which makes the hills even worse. Once you make it to the top you end up sliding down the otherside. These hills combined with constant 28+ degree weather allowed me to understand exactly why the Spanish take siestas. My water bottle and sunscreen came everywhere with me.
My first day and a half here consisted of exploring the streets to see the area and key tourist attractions. I trekked to a few different miradouros (viewpoints) around the city – they were all up thousands of stairs. Other neat locations included pink street, castle de Jorge, the santa justa lift, lisbon cathedral, and arco da rua augusta. Along the way I also saw many of Lisbons iconic yellow trams. We also did mini metro/bus trips to the Belem Tower – a tower built in the 1600’s that acted as a gateway to the harbour, Lisbons scenic gondola – felt a bit like a coastal version of Skyline NZ and Cristo Rei – a statue inspired by Christ the Redeemer in Brazil. While a lot of these attractions were within the old touristy part of the city, which was also where my hostel was located, many weren’t and the spread of the city meant we took quite a few buses and metros. I found they were reasonably easy to use and we just reloaded our transport cards as required, typically with a daily ticket for 6.6€ that gave us unlimited buses/metros. I know there are other options and ways to go about this which might be cheaper but this worked well for me and was pretty straightforward. We also came across many different markets such as the Time Out Market and LX Factory Market. I thoroughly enjoyed the gelato from the time out market.
Following on from my local exploration, I did an afternoon trip to Sintra with some girls from my hostel. This is a highlight of my entire lisbon trip. I was in love with Sintra, the town was so cute. Here we visited Quinta da Regealia which was beautiful! It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site as a place of cultural importance. Honestly the castle and gardens felt like a scene out of an enchanted movie. We had also planned to visit Peña Palace, but ran out of time. Instead we finished off our afternoon out at Cabo da Roca which is the Western most point of continental Europe. It was amazing, but it did remind me a lot of NZ. We’d intended to stay here for sunset, but we were an hour early and it was extremely cold and windy, so we gapped it not too long after arriving. The bus from Quinta da Regealia to Cabo da Roca was an experience, it very much felt like a scene from worlds most crazy roads or similar. The streets are narrow and winding, which is mostly fine for the bus drivers who know what they’re doing but it was a problem when we met other vehicles. We were packed into the back of the bus (no seats) being tossed around while water dropped from an unknown source in the roof. So instead of taking a mix of buses and trains back to lisbon, we ordered a bolt (think european uber) which was ridiculously cheap and a lot easier.
During my stay in Lisbon I had a chance to explore some of the nightlife options, and all I’ll say about that is that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This was also enabled by my hostel as it offered an all inclusive package where you get 3x home cooked meals a day, and unlimited beer or sangria between 5pm – 10:30pm. Following on from this they run nightly pub crawls around town to different bars. This proved to be a lot of fun and a very social environment.
Besides Sintra, another highlight of my time in Lisbon was spending my final night watching sunset from a viewpoint with a bunch of my newfound friends. It was a beautiful sunset, and an awesome way to end my time in Lisbon.
While my time in Lisbon is up, I have another week in Portugal, and I have a feeling that I will enjoy it. Based off first impressions I think Portugal is an incredible country, but maybe Lisbon just isn’t quite my speed (or I’m not on Lisbon’s level??).
~ Nikita’s Nomadic Notes
Nikita’s Nomadic Notes 