Lisbon, Porto, and our "pilgrimage" to S-d-C

Back to Portugal...

So my friends' first full day was certainly full... and fun. In the morning we headed to Restelo to go to my favorite pastry shop for breakfast, but unfortunately it was closed! (on Thursdays). We settled for another pastry shop down the street, which was fine, but not as good as Careca, of course. After lunch we went to Belem (again) and finally got to see the Tower of Belem, which is always such a treat. It was windy and full of tourists, as usual, but of course lots of fun. Afterwards we unfortunately had to drop Becky off at the airport so she could catch a flight to Morocco, but then Jackie and I continued our touristy fun. We went to the center of Lisbon, where we explored the Praça do Comércio and had lunch in a little café during an absolute downpour (the downpour decided our lunch location). When the rain eased up a bit we took the tram up the hill to the castle--another must-see in Lisbon. I don't think I'll ever get tired of exploring castles. We walked down through Alfama (the old part of Lisbon), which was all decorated for the Festa de Santo António (big festival in June in Lisbon), and saw the Cathedral of Lisbon--including a beautiful ruined cloister that I never knew existed! That was a treat for me. We had lanche (traditional portuguese afternoon snack) in a café in Alfama, then headed home for a late (even on portuguese time!) dinner.

The next day we had breakfast with my friend Marisa, then walked around central Lisbon again, exploring Baixa, Rossio, and the Avenida da Liberdade. We met two of my portuguese friends later and walked around Bairro Alto to a beautiful garden and overlook, then had pastries with them in a very very slow service café. After finally paying a bill we shouldn't have had to pay (heh) we headed home on the train, taking time to admire the cute stray dogs and cats by the Cruz Quebrada train station. We had dinner with some of my host sisters' friends, then had a nice long sleep and a lazy saturday morning. When we finally managed to lug ourselves out of bed we went to Pão Pão Queijo Queijo, a great sandwich shop in Belém (best falafel ever!) and then visited the Palácio da Ajuda, a palace near my old high school that proved quite tricky to find. It was nice to see, but nothing compared to the palace we visited later in Madrid.

That afternoon we took the train to Cascais, and Jackie finally got to see a portuguese beach! It was pretty late, so it didn't feel very beach-like, but it was still quite pretty. I had forgotten how picturesque Cascais can be. We strolled through some tourist shops, then had dinner at a British pub (why not) that was mostly full of tourists. The best part of the evening was what was on the screen at the pub: US vs. UK world cup game. We were surrounded by brits and some americans, who of course got very into the game.

Dessert was at Santini, a "famous" ice cream place with delicious ice cream--all the portuguese rave about it. We decided to skip the big Santo António festival because it was pretty late, so we just went back to my host family's house to get ready to take the train to Porto.

Our ride to Porto was uneventful, though when we got there we had to drag our suitcases up one of Porto's many cobblestoned hills to find our hostel (I had forgotten how hilly Porto is!). The hostel was nice, though, and the hill provided for a wonderful view of the city. After a quick rest-up there we had dinner at a little informal, very portuguese café down the hill, then called it an early night.

Our full day in Porto made me realize what a great city it is. I had been there once before, but only for a few days, and it was great to get to visit it again. We saw a beautiful old bookshop that I had remembered from my last trip and had lunch by the water after hopping on a wonderful boat cruise down the river. In the afternoon we did some more wandering, got some pastries for lanche (of course!), and discovered a shopping street full of shoe stores and jewelry stores that begged us to go in. After a full day on our feet we decided to have dinner early--around 6:30--but the waitress at the café we chose had a difficult time understanding the idea of dinner at 6:30 (normal portuguese dinner time is 9). We finally got some sort of food and called it a night.

The next day we were off to Santiago de Compostela! We took a 4-hour bus ride north and ended up changing time-zones, even though we hardly traveled east or west. The Galician countryside was so beautiful, and reminded me a bit of Ireland (that wasn't the only thing that reminded me of Ireland... see my next post). When we got there, I was surprised to see that most of the signs and information was in the galician language, which seems closer to portuguese than spanish (though neither of us could figure out which cues to follow in terms of pronunciation). We got to our tiny room on the fourth floor of the hostel, dropped our bags, and then walked to the center of the town (not too far--it's pretty small!). The town was beautiful, but the most exciting part was of course seeing the cathedral! We feasted our eyes on the famous landmark, then wandered through the old archways and alleys, enjoying watching the pilgrims, tourists, and street performers. We had dinner at a bar (watched Brazil beat North Korea) and then had a good night's sleep in our tiny room.

More on Spain to come! I hope you're enjoying reading, even though my blog posts are so much after-the-fact!