Lisbon, Portugal; My Favorite European City?

The journey to Lisbon started very early in the morning, around 1am. My flight didn’t leave Barcelona until 6:30 but that would have meant leaving my hostel between 4-4:30am which I wasn’t really comfortable with. I booked a shuttle to take me instead thinking I could leave a bit later than I would on public transit and that it would be faster and more convenient. Convenient, yes, faster and later, no. I was picked up at 2am and we made several other stops along the way, finally arriving at 3:20am.

Since I really enjoy airports I wasn’t too bothered by arriving over 3 hours before my flight. I was able to sit and have a good breakfast, take my time getting through security and relax for a while before boarding.

Boarding the plane to leave Barcelona brought me a lot of joy but touching down in Lisbon and the possibility of this new city being amazing (especially in comparison,) was even better!

The Lisbon airport and metro were both really easy to navigate and thanks to my offline maps it wasn’t too hard to find my hostel either. As soon as I stepped out of the metro station and felt the cool breeze I was instantly happier than I had been in days! I knew I wouldn’t be able to check-in but this place had a huge locker room for luggage storage and I had no problem at all going back out into the breeze for a bit of exploration.

I had no idea what was around me and with only one “must see” in the city it didn’t really matter. While I wandered the streets, climbing up and down hills I couldn’t help but smile. Lisbon is beautiful, clean, bright, breezy and safe feeling. Beyond that it feels so charming with all the colourful tiles and cobbled streets. This is what Paris wishes it could be.

Time Out Market was really the only thing in Lisbon that I had to do. A food hall lined with all varieties of food. Sushi, pastry, fresh fish, cured meat, pizza and pretty much anything else you could want. Coincidentally I happened to stumble on the market during my walk and it made for the tastiest afternoon break. I took quite some time walking up and down, weighing my food options before I found what I wanted.  Travesseiros, puff pastry filled with almond cream and topped with sugar. It was locally made and truly one of the best pastries I’ve ever had (maybe I’ll even try to recreate it!) I followed my pastry with a quick slice of pizza so I could continue my walk.

I walked about 18km’s before returning to my hostel and saw everything and nothing. When I have no plans to go anywhere and no expectation of arriving anywhere specific it really allows me to experience a city, so that is what I did.

Exhausted from my walk I went back to explore the inside of the hostel, which for the record is one of the best I’ve ever stayed in. I got a tiny bit turned around but eventually found my room, had a shower and took a nap.

When I got up it was supper time and after a long walk I settled on Empanadas stuffed with veggies and cheese followed by the best ice cream ever, strawberry and avocado flavoured.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for day 2 when I got up in the morning. After breakfast and getting ready I made the snap decision to take a free walking tour of the Alfama area of Lisbon.

I’ve done many free walking tours before and really enjoy them but I never know if the facts are fully accurate. Case in point, this particular guide told us that the Harry Potter books were written in Lisbon and most of J.K. Rowlings inspiration came from this city. I’m not prepared to full discount it but I also don’t believe it having heard almost the exact same thing from my guide in Edinburgh.

Beyond that I also learned and saw many other things.
-Lisbon has a bridge that looks almost identical to the Golden Gate Bridge but it has absolutely no pedestrian access as a way to prevent suicides.
-As one of the top street art cities in the world there are designated areas where people can create massive art pieces anytime, other graffiti is illegal.
-Lisbon is the second oldest capital city in Europe behind Athens. Another fact I am unsure of..

After the tour ended I went for lunch with some people I met along the way and had a very tasty seafood stew. 3 of us decided to continue our day together and caught a train to Belem. I really enjoyed speaking to people in English and not being alone, that was the real highlight of the day. Belem was a pretty area to walk around but I was a bit disappointed to miss the one thing I wanted to see there.

We ended the day playing cards at the hostel and chatting with more people we met on the tour. When they decided to do a pub crawl it was bed time for me.

I'm so pleased that Lisbon was such a gorgeous city and that I could really enjoy myself there, it has quickly joined the top of my list for favourite European cities.