London:
Alissa and I took the train down to London to spend the night there with her sister Leah, and her friends, both Amy's, before heading down to Portugal. The girls flew from Baltimore, and were already at our hostel when we arrived. It was a sweet reunion for Alissa and Leah, and made me miss my sister! Poor Leah's luggage did not arrive with them, so we headed out to get her a few essentials and some lunch/beers since it was St. Patrick's day. We had a lovely afternoon eating, drinking and seeing some sights. We walked to the River Thames, contemplated going on the London Eye, but then decided not too, and headed over to the Tower of London. We didn't go in there either, but it was okay. I haven't mentioned that the weather was CRAP, cold, windy and rainy, not at all good times. But we were all so happy to be on vacation and with each other, that it didn't matter. We had dinner then hit a pub for a couple Guinness' before turning in. The next day, we flew to Lisbon!
Lisbon:
Our first night in Lisbon was pretty good. We arrived at our hostel, only to find out that they didn't have a record of our reservation, so they had to find us somewhere else to stay. We ended up at a hotel that was probably less nice than the hostel would have been, but we were only there for one night, so it wasn't a big deal. Alissa and Leah headed out to get us sandwiches for dinner while the Amy's and I took showers. We then headed out on the town to experience Lisbon's night life. Our first stop, Amy M. and I shared a bottle of red Portuguese wine that was delicious. After that we found a lively bar playing loud Latin music which was pretty fun. Of course, we all had some admirers, which was funny. A Brazilian capoeira instructor who was living in Belgium told me that 'For me you are the best here because you are blonde.' It was flattering, however one dance was enough for me!
In the morning, we headed to the bus station to make a day trip to Evora before heading to the beach in the south of Portugal. In Evora, there was a chapel of bones that I was REALLY excited about, which is why we took the little detour. Come to find out, we get to Evora, trek all of our stuff around the cute little town, only to arrive at the chapel and it was closed for siesta! So pissed because there was only one bus leaving to go to the south, which meant that we saw no bones. : ( Very sad, but we did go see the temple to Diana there which is one of the oldest Roman ruins in the area, situated at the highest point of the town. The town was really cute, as I said, with lots of yellow on the buildings. Did I mention it was raining that day?
Quartiera:
We hopped the bus to our destination down south. I had booked our hotel that was a resort on the beach. When I did the hotel search, I was looking for hotels in Taviera. So that is where I assumed the hotel was. Upon further inspection of our accomodation print out, it turns out that our hotel was situated in Quartiera. We had no idea if that was close to Taviera, because that is where we bought our bus was going. A little tension was brewing, increased by our lack of understanding of the Portuguese language, but it turned out the bus stopped right at Quartiera, and our hotel was right across the street! What luck. So we lugged our stuff across the street, checked into our pretty decent rooms, and headed out for dinner. We were recommended a restaurant nearby, and we all ordered steaks. They were delicious, and at the end of our meal, they gave us a free glass of port! I had never had port before, and it was quite tasty, if a bit sweet. We then headed back to our hotel which had a rockin' gathering of retired folk playing a game similar to bingo. They all seemed to be from England, as the south of Portugal is a popular destination for Europeans to go to the beach.
The next day it was cloudy intermittently, which kind of sucked. Regardless, we headed to the beach for some relaxation. It was a bit chilly at times, and finally around lunch time we sought out some food. We ate at a beach front restaurant that was quite good. We consumed a few Belgian beers and relaxed for a few hours. A few of us headed to the beach for an attempt at more sun, while a couple others took a nap.
For dinner, we wanted seafood, so we found a restaurant owned by a couple, the wife was from I think the Netherlands and the husband was Portuguese. We had some more yummy wine too. Alissa and I decided to share our dishes, so we ordered cod and chicken. The portions were HUGE, we should have shared one dish, accompanied by the fact that neither one of us liked the food. The chicken had a really strong cheese sauce that really overwhelmed the dish. It also looked like one of the breasts wasn't all the way cooked. The cod was cooked in butter, which again totally overwhelmed the dish. So we took little bites to be polite, but weren't really satisfied. In fact, we both felt like scraping our tongues afterwards! We did order dessert which we all shared that was delicious, and we inhaled it. We then found a bar near our hotel that had 'karaoke' which we were really excited about. We went in and ordered our drinks, and were surrounded by a handful of lurking men. Turns out karaoke in Portugal means one guy brings his equipment, and plays some sort of weird instrument and sings. No one else sings, and you can't request songs. It was a little weird.
The following morning was much nicer weather-wise, so we headed to the beach to get some sun before taking the bus back to Lisbon.
Our second night in Lisbon was fantastic. Our hostel was owned by the nicest family ever, and it was really nice! We had dinner in town and then went for drinks. We found one place that had some good sangria, but I could only have one glass because it was so sweet. We met a few new friends here and there, mostly fellow travellers like ourselves.
Lisbon was beautiful. I preffered Lisbon to the Algarve (the south of Portugal) because it seemed to have a bit more culture. The south was like any other beach town anywhere, it was nice, but you didn't really feel like you were necessarily in Portugal. Lisbon had so many neat buildings, tile everywhere, and it was super hilly which made it interesting. It is also on the coast, so it is a port town. Sidewalks and streets were tiled, it was beautiful. The buildings were all different colors, pastels mostly. The language was neat, it sounded like a mixture between German, Russian and Spanish. Our word for the trip was 'obregada' which means 'thank you.'
The day we left, we had the morning to site see in Lisbon. We went to Geronimo's monastery, which was AMAZING. It didn't look like any other old religious building in other parts of Europe, especially England. We took a cheesy little train ride around some sites which was fun. We tried some traditional Portuguese pastries which were tasty. We had to leave that afternoon to catch our flight, so we went back to the hostel and picked up our stuff. We took taxis to the airport, and once we got there realized that we weren't just two hours early for our flight, but FOUR hours! Probably mostly my fault because I thought we were leaving at four instead of six. To be fair, no one else bothered checking! So we sat in the airport forever before heading back to London.
It was a great time in Portugal, and I would love to go back sometime to spend more time in Lisbon, and maybe see the chapel of bones! It was sooo nice to meet the girls, and now I have new friends for life!
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