Portugal: Lisbon + Sintra

Olá! Time for our first true weekend trip! Around 5:30 pm Thursday night we loaded into our first taxi to the Florence airport to fly to Lisbon! We breezed through security and boarded our extremely turbulent plane into the city. The plane ride there I spent catching up on journaling and doodled the duomo!

Upon landing at 10:30, none of us had eaten since lunch & we’re quite possibly the most hungry we had ever been in our life. We checked into our Lisbon chillout hostel, an interesting experience to say the least, and walked to the only restaurant open on our block to get traditional Portuguese food! I got my first ever paella which was delicious, and Erin accidentally order six singular shrimp for dinner which gave us all a laugh. We returned to the hostel for the night and went to sleep in anticipation for a big day tomorrow!

Friday morning we woke up around 10 in efforts to get brunch, a tradition that is heavily emphasized in Lisbon! We heard a shriek in the hall from Grace, a reaction to the fact that the water heater in the hostel was indeed broken and freezing to the touch. Yet, I had to suffer through anyway and probably lost years off my life in the icy cold water. We headed to seventh breakfast to get our fix! Grace and I split the caprese bagel and Nutella pancakes to get a sweet and a salty & had a beautiful cappuccino. We walked around and admired the beautiful tile work all over the buildings! Lisbon is seriously like any city I’ve experienced before, its colors were seriously refreshing even in the cold winter! With intermittent rain, we decided to spend the afternoon toodling around little artisan markets and stores throughout the city. We walked to the LX factory, a shopping district of Lisbon with some of the cutest artisan stores I’ve ever seen! We went into this incredible bookstore with floor to ceilings of vintage books and records. I collected souvenirs for friends and family & my typical postcards!  One guy inside the bookstore was doing a free puppet show of the story of Lisbon which was adorable and fascinating to learn about the city more. I browsed many tile stores in efforts to find a tile that I could bring home with me.

After wearing ourselves out from shopping, we had aperitivo at a local bar in the center! I had a delicious house made sangria & we ran into some guys from UVA we know! So random to know so many people all over Europe. We at dinner at Picanha, a blue tiled, quaint restaurant in the city specializing in Portuguese Picanha, a style of sliced steak often served with rice, baked potato’s, and falafel. It was delicious & we had our first sampling of Portuguese chorizo. After dinner we headed back to the hostel to get ready to go to Pink Street, one of Europes most famous streets for nightlife! The streets are painted pink & are lined with rainbow umbrellas overhead. I have too many stories about this oasis, but I think we made friends with someone from every country in the European Union (and the UK rip brexit) and had an amazing time meeting so many unique people from across the world.

Saturday morning was an earlier wake up for us as it was the day we scheduled our most touristy activities! We grabbed brunch at Dear Breakfast & I had the best brunch I’ve ever had, avacado toast on a croissant and truffle hashbrowns. Everybody’s food was delicious & we just had so much fun sitting and talking about all our memories from yesterday. We headed over to Lisbon Cathedral to see the 12th century architecture! Yet, this cathedral has been rebuilt a few times with the amount of earthquakes in Lisbon, so it has diverse architectural influence all throughout! We explored more of the city and admired the tiles on our way to the São Jorge Castle! The castle sits atop the highest point in all of Lisbon and is a Moorish castle that was once home to the royals of Portugal. The area is sprinkled with peacocks and beautiful gardens and holds the best view of the city!

On our way down from the castle was our next bucket list item for the trip: to try Pastel de Nata! These tiny pastries are an egg custard tart in a filo dough shell and sort of reminded me of mini crème brûlées ! They were delicious and can be found all over the city. Our next move was unexpected and honestly turned out to be my favorite part of the wool trip. About an hour outside of Lisbon is the tiny coastal town of Sintra, the home of Pena Palace. The 19th century castle is a colorful masterpiece built by King Ferdinand II and is a marriage of Moorish, gothic, and Renaissance styles all together. It’s bright yellow and red walls and tiles made of for an incredibly beautiful sight & we watched one of the coolest sunsets from what felt like the tallest point in Portugal. We toured the rooms of the castle and it was ornately decorated and stunning in every room. It was extremely worth it & Diana chose the wrong day to wear a wrap skirt. Could not recommend enough!

We headed to dinner back in Lisbon at a restaurant right on Pink Street where I got the Portuguese classic steak and eggs! We enjoyed another glass of sangria and went to a jazz club for the remainder of the night to listen to The Boys, a band from Brazil! We made a group of friends from Scotland that we LOVED & headed back early to get rest for our travel day the next day!

Sunday was quick, just grabbing brunch before heading to the airport. Sadly, we selected the worst brunch place of all time, an all vegan brunch spot where the food actually all tasted like pure grass. I was safe with the avocado toast but Grace and Diana were very disappointed with their breakfast burritos. We hopped on the plane back to Florence & headed home! Grateful for a wonderful first trip, and it’s safe to say I will be going back to Portugal!