Portugal*

Portugal: March 21 - 23

My first test of this huge trip…Portuguese? I flew into Faro, a smaller city on the Mediterranean coast. The weather was decent for the first part of the day, but by the time I made it to the beach it had became cloudy and windy. During my historical walk through the old section of downtown, I visited the Cathedral and the Regional Museum. Both presented me with a gorgeous view of the city as well as the unique marshland/islands in between the city and the Sea. I had a bit of trouble following the map and its “route of interest,” but for anyone that has traveled with me, you know following maps is not my strong point. But when it is 25C, sunny, and a beautiful little city, who cares, getting lost is actually quite nice. As I had stored my pack at the bus station and had purchased my bus ticket to Lisbon that night, I headed for the beach (small pebbles, not sand) for the rest of the day. I read my book, relaxed, and danced to my I-pod (seriously, I was SO pumped for this trip I could not stop smiling/dancing. I believe at one point I was smiling so hard/much my eyes started to water). This point on the beach I was on top of the world. My energy level was at an all time high so I decided to walk. During my jaunt, I had a chance encounter that I found quite interesting. From here I caught the bus back to the station and then caught another bus on to Lisbon.

I arrived in Lisbon at 22:00, walked to what looked like a very dodgy end of town where my hostel happened to be located. I stayed in the Lisbon Lounge Hostel, which turned out to be the best hostel I have stayed at. I decided to go check out the bar district known as Bairro Alto and walked around for about an hour. This area was very interesting and enjoyable.

The next morning I met Max and Rob at my hostel. Max was heading to Sintra so I tagged along. Sintra is a vacationing town about a 45-minute train ride from Lisbon. This town has an absolutely crazy Palace (Palacio de Pena) that looks like it is straight from a fairy tale. It was designed using three distinctly different architecture styles and is extremely unique. Several gorgeous parks surround the castle and Max and I walked through a couple of them. One park was designed to mimic a tropical rainforest and the weather we had (misty and very low clouds) was very suiting. We walked back the hour through some other parks to Sintra from the palace, looked around the town and caught our train back to Lisbon. The day concluded with the purchase of my next bus ticket, a nice long exploration, and fine dining with Max and Rob (we all ordered mystery platters since none of us were able to read the menu. I ended up with a fish fillet, Max had a bucket of organs, and Rob had two whole fish).

The following day I was on my own to explore Lisbon proper. I started with a nice long run in which I became completely lost never finding the park I had set as my destination. I cleaned up and then visited San Sebastio (shopping district with a tower over looking the city), Alfama (with the Castelo de Sao Jorge), rode both tram 25 and 15 because the weather was absolutely terrible…rain, rain, and cold, and finally found the park I had tried to get to during my run, which was a major let down. This first part of the day was miserable. The weather was cold, I was a bit lonely, and I just did not have that great of a time (I spent 25 minutes huddled in a corner of the Castle trying not to get soaked by the drenching rain). However, at 17:30 I met Rob and Max again for dinner and we walked to an amazing part of town, Lisbon’s version of Champs Elyees. Here you can find a beautiful park with some peculiar monuments to WWII. This second part of my day was a complete turn around. Max and Rob were both fun guys and the weather had stopped raining for the most part. At about 20:30, I bought a sandwich to go, said my goodbyes, exchanged emails and headed for the bus station.

I caught the 21:30 night bus to Seville Spain.