Wanted to post news about my upcoming trip and noticed that I still have not written anything about my wonderful Portugal trip! So here it goes:
First of all I want to thank Liisi's friend Helen and her partner Duarte - they were the most wonderful hosts. Taking their time over the weekend to take us all over the place and to show us all sorts of things - to introduce us Portuguese culture. Big-huge-enourmous thank you for that!
On the first day we headed to town with Liisi. Tried to see as much as possible - the castle, the shops, the main square and squares surrounding the main square, the train station and all sorts of streets between there. Lisbon is a beautiful town. All the up-and-downs on the streets were a bit tough on our feet, but all of it was secondary :) They got cute trams here! During the day we found was lots of wine and ice cream and scones and salads and snacks and chilling and fountains and many-many beautiful sights. It was a good day. In the evening Helen and Duarte took us to a big shopping mall a bit out of town, across the river, late night shopping + dinner. Arrived home half dead :)
On the second day we headed to Belem with Liisi - took one of the fancy new trams there, found our way to the monastery and then to Centro Cultural de Belém, there was a very nice exhibition with all sorts of practical materials/things turned into art. Since Belem is all about Vasco da Gama (famous Portuguese explorer) our next stop was at Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries). It is this huuuge tower built by the river, tourists can climb to the top and there is a museum with cinema down-stairs. I highly suggest the cinema actually - I quite enjoyed it, although I was fighting sleep the whole time :D Oh and the sardines! I had the best sardines ever! On our first visit we missed Pasteis de Belem :( but we fixed it few days later with the help of Helen and Duarte.
Then came the weekend :) Close to Helen and Duarte's apartment there is a flee market couple of times a week in the mornings so we stopped by to check out Feira de Ladra. Amazing what they sell there - everything from spoons to candles to books to jewelry to clothes. It was a fun place. As Saturday was quite rainy our next stop was even closer to water - we visited the Oceanarium. That was a wonderful place - we must have been there for hours :D Again, highly suggested! Also stopped by the cakes place in Belem - Pasteis de Belem's were wonderful! Aaaah almost forgot, in Belem, at the electricity museum we also managed to visit the World Press Photo exhibition. Quick tour through Lisbon - few viewing platforms, few parks and drinks, few bars and a nice restaurant. What a perfect day!
Sunday, Duarte took us all around to Cascais, Cabo da Roca and Sintra. Now one at a time. Cascais is this wonderful seaside town about 45 minutes out of Lisbon. What a beautiful perfect little Portuguese town. It was simply too perfect :) Had the best ice cream there, walked around and headed on following the ocean side to Cabo da Roca - westernmost location in whole Europe. Location is breath taking - high cliff above dark blue-green ocean. Just gorgeous. Took quite many photos there :D On to Sintra we headed. Duarte took us around the town, showed us beautiful mansions and houses and introduced us to yet another type of delicious cakes. Visited his parent's house and a very large garden, met his brother with his wife and little cute daughter :) Evening was topped off with home delivery sushi and off to bed we went.
I returned home on Monday, Liisi stayed one more day in Lisbon. Don't even wanna write too much about my trip back. Yes, my flight was delayed because of the ash :( I missed my connecting flight and ended up spending an extra night at Stockholm :( Oh that was a tough one. Was dead tired once I got back. BUT!! The trip was awesome and not even this little delay with my return could change that.
Again - thank you Helen and Duarte. Hope to see you soon!
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