Europe > Exams: Lisbon (Day 8)

Hola todos,

I woke up and sipped coffee on our little rooftop balcony to the sounds of a city waking up. I could get used to this.

Lisboa Card

Before I get too involved in describing our day, I want to explain the Lisboa card. This is a prepaid card that gives you free or discounted access to public transportation and tons of museums across the city. We looked into the card and figured it would be financially worth it to get a 72-hour “plan”. So, as I am recounting our day, I’ll mention if we used it and keep a running total of how much money we saved.

Zenith

We started this morning a bit more leisurely since a lot of things are shut down on Mondays. Since we had a smaller list of places to tackle, we decided to have a sit-down breakfast at a brunch place someone recommended to us.

It was a really modern and chic restaurant that reminded me of hot DC brunch spots. It had a lot of American food options, but often with a European or Portuguese twist.

They did charge us for the tap water, which was a total scam. But otherwise, we had a good time. The food was affordable and delicious, and they hit two of the three points of the tourist trifecta (free water, free Wi-Fi, free bathroom).

Sé de Lisboa (Lisbon Catedral)

Lisboa Card savings: 1€

Then we walked over to the Lisbon Cathedral, which looks a lot like Notre Dame. The Cathedral also suffered some fire damage, but is in better shape than the two we saw yesterday. That is because it is in a different part of the city that was less affected by the earthquake and the fire. This cathedral also holds a lot of the relics and treasury of the Catholic Church in Lisbon, so part of it functions as a museum. It also has a balcony with a stunning view of Lisbon and the river.

Here are some views from the balcony!

Tram 12

Lisboa Card savings: €1.85

In addition to trains and buses, Lisbon also has trams throughout the city. The most famous ones are Tram 28 and Tram 12, since they pass through the most common tourist areas. Tram 28 is notoriously crowded, so we decided to try to hop on Tram 12.

The trick was to hop on a stop that is not near the biggest tourist attractions so that you can get a seat before the Team fills up. That plan worked great, and we got great seats on the tram to view the city. Tram 12’s path is a circle, so once we got on, we just sat down and viewed a few different neighborhoods. We decided to ride it twice so that we could get different views of the city.

While Tram 28 is the most famous, I think Tram 12 was great. It stopped by some of the main tourist areas and we got to see the city in a cool way.

At one point, the tram stopped for a few minutes and we were trying to figure out what was going on since we had a green light. Turns out, the driver wanted to take a quick smoke break! We thought that was funny because that’s not something that really happens on DC public transit.

Old Town/Alfama

We got off the train in the Old Town or Alfama neighborhood. It was at the top of the hill, so it was perfect to ride the train up to the neighborhood and then walk down. We walked down through some really narrow neighborhoods with cobblestone streets—very picturesque.

Palacio Nacional da Ajuda

Lisboa Card savings: €1.85 bus, €15 entrance (museum + palace)

Next, we took the bus to Belém, a city in the Greater Lisbon Area. The Palace museum holds the national jewelry and treasure collection dating back centuries. It’s amazing to see the country’s and former royal families’ fancy silver, gold, jewels, crowns, jewelry, silverware, coins, swords, and more!

The exhibit is well done: they put all of the treasures on display in blacked out rooms with spotlight cases to highlight how beautiful the gold and jewels are.

You can also tour the Palace and its various rooms. The rooms hold more national and royal works of art but have largely been maintained to look as they did when the Palace was in use by the royal family. It’s amazing how much wealth is on display there.

It’s also cool to learn about the daily life of a royal by seeing the location and layout of different rooms throughout the palace. (Never mind that the queen’s dressing room was bigger than every apartment I’ve lived in!)

We spent several hours in the Palace, since it is enormous. The rooms just kept coming and coming and coming.

We couldn’t take a ton of pics, but this is the outside view from the back.

This is the Palace dining room where Jimmy Carter dined as President.

Another power pose opportunity we couldn’t pass up.

Discovery Monument

Lisboa Card savings: 1.2€

This is a big monument celebrating the explorers of Portugal, like Vasco da Gama (first to sail to India from Europe.) I wasn’t sold on going to the top, but it was totally worth it. We climbed about 200 steps to see amazing views of Lisbon, the river, and the Atlantic. Stunning!

Pasteis de Belém Café

Belém is known for its own variation on the pasteis de nata, called the pasteis de Belém. The recipe dates back to the monks who lived at the monastery in Belém. This café is the one that is most famous for serving pasteis de Belém. We rested our feet and got a little snack before heading back into Lisbon.

It’s a very unassuming facade, but the interior is huge.

Pink Street

Lisboa Card savings: €1.85 bus

We bussed back to Lisbon and got off near the famous Pink Street. We obviously couldn’t pass up a photo op!

Time Out Market

Then we walked to the Time Out Market, which is indoor dining space with lots of local restaurants you can order from. We ate dinner there and then got gelato (of course!) for the walk back to the Airbnb.

A full, but good, day!

Lisboa Card savings total: 22.75€

Step tracker: 155,132 steps

Besos,

Tina the ExploraDora