Photos and Fun (and as always food) from Lisbon, Portugal

We spent about a week in Lisbon exploring the city and its hills, churches, beaches, azulejos and delicious foods. Knowing zero Portuguese and very little about the city we managed to see quite a bit and found some amazing experiences to share. (This is the view from the top of the Monastery of Sao Vicente de Fora. It is a great historical museum experience and has the best views of the city. There is a fee to get in but it is very small and much cheaper than the overly touristy castle fee. I'd definitely recommend as a must do for your first day in Lisbon as you get the sweet view and a good little intro to the city.)

We spent many of our days just walking around the city looking at the beautiful streets and buildings and trying to find fun places to stop in for local food or drinks.

In many of the little side alleys and back streets we found very cool street art.

Some was political - speaking out against the homophobic hatred of Putin and other bigots.

Some educational - a full history of Portugal painted on the inside of a small side walk tunnel in comic strip form.

With many just being fun little art pieces.

The colors of the buildings and general feel of the city with all the hills really reminded me of San Francisco!

Lisbon even has fun little cable cars and an identical looking Golden Gate Bridge! We were going to take a ride on the cable cars as that's what all the travel books and crappy blogs say, but a local friend said these rides were way over-rated and you get a better experience just walking along the cable car routes. We took his advice and would have to agree. The cars were packed full like the famous Portuguese sardines and moved only slightly faster than a brisk walking pace.

We spent one full day out at one of the many beaches that are just a short train ride outside Lisbon. Based on another local's tip, we took the train to Carcavelos beach which was an expansive beach with as many Portuguese people as tourists which is rare for beaches near Lisbon it seems. A pro tip is when you go to the train station to buy your tickets for the ride to Carcavelos, if you see a huge line at the ticket machines upstairs, you can just walk down the stairs to the metro station where you can get the same tickets with no lines at all. When we were there, the lines upstairs were probably 30-60 minute waits. Downstairs there was literally no line. Same tickets in both spots, literally a 2 minute walk apart. Just the silly sheeple following the crowds. Also you only need about €5 per person for the round trip ride. Pretty sweet deal for a 45 min train ride out to the beautiful and less crowded beach in Carcavelos.

Best Lisbon restaurant experience is at Gambrinus! This place truly has the feel of a timeless institution. I imagine the place looks and feels the same as it did 30 years ago. Get the pork dish with the fried chestnuts and potatoes. With appetizers along side (butter and garlic shrimp are great), one order is enough to share. It's not a budget spot but the food and the service are well worth the price. It is a steal of an experience for the price if you were in any other city! A must go to spot, dress up a little and go have an awesome dinner. It was so good we eat here twice!

A staple of Portugal is the salted cod. Every grocery store had a whole cod section even though these fish are not even found in the waters off Portugal's coastlines. They say there are at least 365 ways to cook cod in Portugal. So far I've had 2 and they were both good.

One downside to not speaking the local language is when you are ordering off menus in real local places that don't have anything in English and you have to make some educated guesses at what to order. Sometimes what the waiter brings out isn't quite what you expected. In this case I ordered a veal dish with potatoes, and was expecting some kind of steak or roast dish with pieces of potatoes in a sauce. Instead I got these mashed veal deep fried sausage things (they were like an upscale version of the late night snacks we tried in Kampen!) with French fries and a green dipping sauce. It was still very tasty but quite heavy and not quite what we were craving for lunch that day.

Anyone who knows me well knows I like birds and love ducks. So I was especially happy to see Alena finally getting on the duck stoke train while we were grabbing a beer and snack at the beautiful Jardim da Estrela. The way to a duck's heart is through its stomach.

Our last night in Lisbon we finally tried the famous green wine of Portugal. It is a very interesting wine that is uniquely Portuguese. It is an acidic and fruity (usually) white wine that is (usually) slightly effervescent. Tasted to me very similar to a New Zealand style sauvignon blanc that was very young and a little bubbly. Vinho Verde is distinguished both by its taste as well as its location, being grown only in the far north of Portugal. It is a fun and cheap Summery wine that we enjoyed with some cheap frozen pizza.

I'll end with a goofy photo our hostel tour group took with one of the street selfie machines that are scattered throughout the city. It was the end of a fun night out with people from our hostel after touring the Alfama district and getting treated to an amazing fado performance. We stayed at the Traveler's House hostel in Lisbon. It was an amazing recommendation by my buddy Drew. The hostel put on great events like this nightly through which we met a few really cool characters and got to see parts of Lisbon we would not otherwise had gotten the opportunity to experience. I'd definitely recommend the Traveler's House to anyone who is headed to Lisbon!