The Sevilla Story: Lisbon

This weekend I went to Lisbon, Portugal with my program. They pronounce it "leesh-boa."
We got to Lisbon Friday afternoon. We had a little bit of free time right when we got there and Lanae and I walked to the top of a nearby park. Lisbon is very hilly. We got to the top and it had a very nice view all the way down to the river. There was a plaza right near there and there was a demonstration going on. Portugal has a very bad economy right now and so the people were protesting it. Because of it traffic was all halted and we ended up having to walk to St. Jorge's castle instead of taking the bus. The castle was on top of one of the hills and parts of the climb were rather steep, but it was definitely worth the walk. The view was so pretty from up there. I could see the whole city and ththe water. Lisbon is located on a river just a few kilometers away from the Atlantic ocean. It is compared to San Francisco. They have a bridge designed by the same company that made the golden gate, and they have trams running through the city. We got to go across the bridge to get to the city. Then at the castle we got to walk around the top of the castle and go up in the little towers. On the way out we saw a few peacocks around the castle. After the castle we walked down the hill through the old neighborhood with tiny little narrow streets. We ended at the main plaza near the water and then we had free time. Lanae, Rachel, Allison, Ashley, and I found a cute little cafe to go to. Portugal is know from these little pastries, bolos con natal. They have a pastery crust and are filled with a custard cream and you put cinnamon on top. We tried them there and they were so good. Then later we found a place for dinner. We all tried bacalao, which is cod fish. We had one type which was made with scrambled eggs, hashbrown potatoes and cod. It was an interesting combination. It was good and I'm glad I tried it, but I don't know if I'd get it again.

The view from the top of the park

A demonstration

Tram

1/2 up the hill

The bridge

The Castle

Peacocks

My Castle

Part of the old neighborhood. It is common to have buildings covered in these tiles.

custard pastries

Dinner bacalou

Saturday we had breakfast included at the hotel. It was so delicious! They had salmon (similar to lox), which I had missed so much. We made little sandwiches with cheese and salmon almost like a bagel. Then they had really good fruit, pasteries, nuts, and the custard tarts. Then we went on a tour. We drove a little bit around Lisbon and made our way to the important church. It survived the 1755 earthquake, which was a big deal. The church it self was pretty similar to all the others I've seen here, but they had a beautiful courtyard. Afterward we went to the Belem tower. It was built a long time ago in the middle of the river to keep watch of all the coming and going ships. Now the tower is at the edge of the water because they filled in part of the river. Lanae and I climbed all the way to the top of it using this teeny tiny spiral staircase packet with people. It way a little scary, but the view at the top was beautiful. After that the tour was over and we decided to wander through the streets. We did some shopping. In the main plaza there was a little market with handmade crafts. We browsed them and some were very pretty and unique. Later we made our way to another market. Lanae and I tried this candy that this guy was making. It started out with powered sugar and maybe honey. It started with one long strand and had to keep stretching it and having to keep doubling the amount of strands. He had to get to some absurd number. Then he filled them with a mixture of nuts and chocolate. It was really good. The outside strands were so fine and it tasted a little similar to baklava. Then we headed for lunch. Lanae and I shared both a different type of cod and a fried fish with rice. Both if them were very good and so fresh. We also oreded a bottle of vino verde, which is a specific wine to Portugal. We had the red wine version, it's usually white (don't worry we had that later). It's a sparkling wine a little similar to champagne.
We continued to walk around the city and just see what we found. We were making our way to barrio alta (a part of town on a hill) and I saw the ice cream place that the I saw when looking up places to go to in Portugal. We obviously had to go. Is was such a hard choice to decide what flavors to get because they all sounded so good. I ended up picking raspberry and coconut. Both of which were absolutely fantastic! At that point Lanae ansdI went further up to the neighborhood while the rest of them went back shopping. We walked down some of the cute streets. They were filled with tiny cute restaurants and stores. It was fun wandering through and we ended up at a little square overlooking the city. It was dark, but the view with all the city lights was beautiful. We met up with them again and decided to go to one of the cute restaurants we had found for a light dinner. We went back to the one that had the cutesy Portugal table clothes and plates. We shared a cheese plate, tomatoes stuffed with goat cheese, steak strips, and a bottle of the white vino verde. We liked this wine better and the food was good too. Then came the best decision of the day: go back and get another ice cream cone. You only go to Lisbon once so it's perfectly acceptable to get ice cream twice in a day. It was another hard decision choosing what flavors, but I got toasted almond and Venezuela chocolate. They were both amazing and went so well together!
Sunday morning we enjoyed our amazing breakfast once again and then started the 6 hour drive back. It was a fun weekend, but Lisbon is not at the top of my list of favorite places.