More Lisboa

I never finished my Lisboa stories! The highlight of Saturday was definitely our tour with Bruno. Who is Bruno? Excellent question. He is this super cool, laid-back guy who is a graphic designer in real life, and he sometimes works at the hostel where we were staying. He realized that lots of people come to Lisboa and never see his favorite parts because they get too overwhelmed by the options or confused by the public transportation or simply don't know what's there to see. He thinks this is totally a waste and created a tour for the hostel guests. A few days a week he drives foreigners around in his van to all the coolest places in and around Lisboa. He wasn't going to give the tour the Saturday we were there, but when he saw us all sleeping on the couch Friday morning he knew we needed help and organized a tour just for the "angels on the sofa." Seriously, that's what he called us. Sweet, no?

It was the BEST tour of my life and even though it was 20 Euros, plus some cheap food and admission to one of the places we visited, I can say with confidence it's the best money I have spent in Europe so far. Part of the tour's charm was, of course, our guide and the fact that it didn't feel like a tour. It felt like Bruno was a good friend of ours and, as a friend, he wanted to make sure we had a good time in Lisboa. We started off in Sintra, a little town 25 minutes from the capital. Bruno directed us to a pastry shop and instructed us to buy quejadas (little cheesecakes). Then, we were to meet him at a place farther ahead because the best way to get the feel of Sintra was to walk through the village. The pastry was delicious and the town very, very cute. When we reunited with Bruno he bought us another pastry (also delectable, but much sweeter). He told us that back in the day this pastry had only been for the rich.

The highlight of Sintra was undoubtedly the Pena Palace. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site (the first one, in fact) and I could spend the next 15 paragraphs trying to describe its beauty, but I still wouldn't be able to convey it, so I won't bother. It was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. Basically, it's out of a fairytale and is nestled in a low mountain and surrounded by a forest/park. The walls are a mix of cheerful colors and the famed Portuguese tiles. My friends and I took absurd amounts of pictures as we walked around the parapets of the castle and looked out at the incredible view. You can walk almost all the way around the exterior along narrow stone pathways that every few feet have mini-towers and staircases you can climb for an even better view. The whole group was captured by the magic of the castle and we could not stop exclaiming over its beauty. I felt so lucky to have the chance to see the palace, and we all kept saying that it was so fabulous it couldn't be real. It is real, however, and if you want some sense of what I'm talking about you should check out the wikipedia page on the palace. It's got some good pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pena_Palace.

You'd think after that high the rest of the day would be a let-down, but it absolutely was not. We stopped next at a stand on the road for lunch. I can't tell you the name of what it was, but essentially it was a chorizo (spicy sausage) calzone. It was fresh from the oven and only cost 1 Euro. It doesn't get much better than that. We continued on to the end of the world. It's the western-most point in Europe and before the Americas were discovered Europeans thought that there wasn't anything else but the ocean. One of my friends remarked that, looking out at the ocean from this spot, you could believe that it was the end of the world. I certainly couldn't see NY. It was another beautiful site and a nice natural contrast to the man-made beauty of the palace.

This is a little strange but one of my favorite parts of the tour was the van ride between each site. As we hurtled down the narrow roads we blasted our American music. You know how sometimes when you do ordinary things to music it makes the moment way more special? It was like that. The scenery was so beautiful and the loud music meant that there wasn’t any pressure to talk. I loved being able to just zone out a little bit and take some time to think about the amazing things I had seen.

Next up was the beach! Portugal's got great beaches and we stopped briefly at one because the sand was beautiful and it's very famous, but we stayed for 1/2 hour or so at another that was a little less impressive, but more accessible. The water was FREEZING. Also at the beach we got world-famous ice-cream. Lots of rich Europeans wanted to leave their home countries during WWII in order to escape the fighting and since Portugal was neutral went there. One Italian family came and opened up an ice-cream store and decided they loved it so much they never left. The ice-cream truly was excellent and I had a raspberry-chocolate-cream combination. I was quite proud of myself for putting together such a delightful concoction.

Finally, we headed to Belém. Belém has the super cool Monument to the Discoveries which celebrates all of the Portuguese explorers. There were a lot. It's a big ship's brow that juts out into the ocean (river?) and the guys who discovered the new world and faster routes to Africa/Asia are depicted in sculpture form all down the sides. Fearlessly leading the trip is Henry the Navigator, who I guess never actually sailed anywhere, but was a big supporter of the explorations. While the monuments were cool and all, the big draw in Belém was the famous pastry shop. Yes, I know that much of this tour was about food. That's part of what made it so great. This pastry shop is 160 years old and makes the wonderful "pastel de Belém," custard tarts with a flaky crust. The line was way out the door for the tarts, but Bruno has connections (of course he does) and he walked us right into the store and we came out with our bag of pastéis. We sprinkled a little cinnamon and a little powered sugar and enjoyed them right on the street while the people in line watched enviously.

Thus concluded the tour. Really, it was wonderful and such a great thing for our group because it meant we didn't have to figure out what was worth seeing and what wasn't. I am eternally grateful to Bruno and the Oasis Backpacker's Hostel.