Lisbon (Part 2)
On the 12th October I did my first post of my travel blog and I kicked it off with Lisbon. As I called it 'Part 1' I'd always intended to do a second part, but I had forgotten about it until @spiritualmax & @fba01 reminded me in my last travel blog about the Dominican Republic. For those of you who are interested about my motives, why I write these blogs or who want to read the first post about Lisbon, click here.
Torre de Belém, we were there early, but the busses with tourists were already arriving, so we were luck to be able to take this picture without any tourists in it posing for their own pictures
The reason why I wanted to do a second post about Lisbon is because of the fantastic food and people we encountered there. On the first 2 days we did all the touristy things, we took a tram ride, we went up to the castle, we went to the aquarium, etc. However we really discovered the 'heart' of Lisbon after we went to Belém and had 'ticked all the boxes' and we had time left to spare.
Belém
My wife and I are early risers in general so after we had our breakfast at the hotel, we set out quite early to visit the neighboorhood/village of Belém. After we visited the imposing Torre de Belém and managed to take a few pictures without any posing tourists on them we headed to the fantastic Monastery. We finished the tour of Belém at Pastéis de Belém. This was the first place where they made these fine pastries.
Pastéis de Belém, good coffee and fantastic pastries
Now we had seen and done everything we wanted to do and we still had plenty of time left. We headed back to the hotel and asked for advice on what we could do. The gentleman at reception probably gave us the best advice. He told us to take a ferry to the other side, have lunch over there at one of the restaurants and then head over to the Christ-Statue for some spectacular views of the city.
Cacilhas
So we did just that, but when we arrived at the other side we were far from impressed with what we found there, but as we were hungry we headed to the first restaurant in sight, this happened to be Farol. Inside we were taken to a separate, clean and probably newly refurbished part of the restaurant ... things were looking up. This was probably as they saw we had a little baby with us and they wanted to offer us some peace and quiet from the hustle in the other part. The waiter seemed to have trouble with English, but we managed to place an order nontheless.
Needless to say this is a seafood restaurant, so we ate seafood. I ordered the mackerel, my wife had a dorade and we ordered sardines for our daughter. The food was quickly served and the portions were fantastic. I got 3 mackerels and my daughter got 3 sardines, so we had way too much for the 3 of us. The quality was fantastic, fresh and properly spiced with just enough salt, not to take the natural flavours of the fish away. This was the best meal we had during our stay in Lisbon.
Cristo Rei
After lunch we walked up the hill to the statue of Christ. The distance is about 3,5 kilometers as we walked along the coast and the last part goes steeply up a hill, but it is worth it. Once up on the statue the views over Lisbon are amazing, but it's quite difficult getting up there as it's quite narrow inside and difficult to manoever with a little baby.
Up on the statue, our daughter who had just started to walk, walked over to the prettiest person in sight and got her to pick her up. We found here as everywhere we went that the people are so open and friendly. The place is perfect for a family holiday. Once we got down and sat down for a coffee our daugther went over to an elderly couple and got to sit on their lap and they even paid a ride for her on one of those mechanised elephants.
In all we found the people everywhere open, friendly and heartwarming, natural and helpfull and we will definitely return to Portugal more in the years to come, try more of their hospitality, eat more fantastic food and visit other stunning historical sites such as Porto, Cascais, but also lesser known places.
I leave you with a few more pictures of our trip to Lisbon and I hope you liked what you read. Feel free to ask me anything or even give me suggestions.
Pictures in black and white make everything look more antique and old, especially nice in a historical town like Lisbon
People doing martial arts on the square in front of our hotel, whilst we're having breakfast
This peacock gave us a real show at the Castelo de S. Jorge
The view from our balcony over the Martim Moniz square, more to the right is the Castle on the hill
Taken from the tram, I loved it how those old trams manoeverd through the narrow streets and avoiding cars by milimeters.
I'm sure many incidents involving trams and cars have taken place in Lisbon
Thanks,
Doron
!steemitworldmap 38.678642 lat -9.171374 long Cristo Rei, Lisbon D3SCR