One week of hell working on school allowed me to take this extra trip before the last week of classes! I left late Thursday night to catch a bus to Dublin for an early morning flight. I got into Lisbon Friday around 1:00 and ate rabbit with rice at a local restaurant in a square. It was delicious and the server was amazingly nice to me! I walked around all day looking at numerous churches and views of the city. It is a really hilly city which allows for amazing views. I had an interesting experience with locals which I'll leave unsaid for now, but ask me about it in person and I'll explain! Great story!
I walked and saw St. George's Castle, the National Pantheon (just walked by it since it was already closed), the city center plaza, as well as a number of other churches. Since it gets dark so early, I headed to my hostel around 6pm. I met a German girl that was in Lisbon for a week visiting a friend that was studying there for a semester. She told me a couple cool places to eat and drink some beers. I went back to the city centre for a couple beers and dinner. There was fun people watching and a lot of street shows going on so I walked around and watched those. I ended up going back to the hostel around 10:30 and fell asleep by 11. I was exhausted, and was planning on doing a bike tour around Lisbon the next day!
I woke up around 8:30 and headed to the meeting point for the bike tour only to find out that it was raining. It did not stop raining from that point until I left (it was still raining when I was in the plane leaving). I was kind of bummed because I went to Lisbon to get some warmth and sun before a cold winter. It was warm, but soaking wet! Anyways, the bike tour didn't show up and I needed to find shelter so I got on a bus tour. They drove around Lisbon and stopped at a small city outside of Lisbon called Belem. I had a couple places I wanted to see here so I hopped off. I ended up caving and buying a 5 euro umbrella (worth 1 euro maybe), and walked around for 4-5 hours. I saw the Discoveries Monument, Belem Tower, and Jeronimos Monastery, which are all very touristy, but since it was raining, I'm assuming it was less busy than usual. I had heard about the Belem Palace, which was a fifteen minute walk from the main area, but I heard it was a diamond in the rough, so I made the walk. I found a cemetery on the way and walked through it. I have pictures that show how different their tombstones are; they are more like small rooms where an entire family will have their coffins put in. They were beautiful set ups. I eventually found the Palace and was the only one walking around it! It was awesome and talked about Kind Luis I (of Lisbon) and showed his bedrooms and all the other interesting rooms in the palace; of course there are way more rooms than they actually needed. I was allowed to stay past 2pm, which is closing time, and a lady actually gave me a little tour as she followed me around before closing. She explained all the art on the walls and all the rooms and their significance which made it much more meaningful. She surprised me at the end by opening a door into a 180 seat dining hall where they have important meetings, both national and international. They still have these meetings here to this day.
I went back to Lisbon and explored a couple more spots before heading to my hostel. Everything was SOAKED, so I just found a pizza around the hostel and cooked it in the kitchen. I met a German guy in the hostel this night that had been in Lisbon for the past week on a school trip. He felt bad for me due to the weather these last couple days since it is usually so much nicer there. He seemed like a cool guy and I went out and got a beer with him and one of his friends that was still there with his class.
I woke up the next day and ran to the Libon Cathedral, which is the oldest church in Lisbon dating back to the 1100's. I didn't have time to get to the Casa-Museu Doutor Anastacio Goncalves, which sounded like a cool art museum/house of an old rich doctor (back in the day). Next time I suppose.
After the Catherdral I headed to the airport and hopped on the plane again back to Dublin; another successful Lone Wolf trip. I came home to a short week of classes before heading off to Italy to explore Florence and Rome! See the next blog entry for more!
Slán
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