Hi all, Zoe here, its been a while… Things have been kind of weird recently. What with Cardiff University stopping all face-to-face teaching for the rest of the academic year and all of my exams being cancelled – meaning my first year is basically over already. I’ve now moved everything back home so getting used to being with the family again! David also had to leave his placement a week early due to Covid-19 and its all a bit up in the air as to what the rest of his year is going to look like now.

So all fun and games, and you’d think that this meant that we’d have more time for blogging right? We thought so too but apparently not – as the uni isn’t closed we still have to learn and study which takes up a lot of our time as we both do quite intense courses (not that I’d rather be studying anything else!) but I think just settling into the unknown has been really hard for the both of us and things that we enjoy doing have seemed to come to a bit of a stand-still.

But enough about that, I’ve decided to sit down this sunny afternoon in the garden and reminisce about our wonderful late summer holiday in Lisbon, Portugal’s capital. We had a magical time exploring this place, but just a word of warming before you get enchanted by it – the city is situated among seven hills (yes you did read that correctly) which proved to be a little challenging especially in the gorgeous summer weather we experienced when we were there. Of course you can always catch a taxi and there is plenty of public transport around that we made use of, but I thought it best to put it out there now so you know what to expect!

I’ve split our trip into 2 posts so there hopefully isn’t that information overload – I hope you enjoy part 1 and stay tuned for part 2!

Todays topics:

• Where we stayed
• Belém
• Campo de Ourique, Lapa & Madragoa
• Chiado & Bairro Alto

Where we stayed

Charming Apartment in Lisbon

We turned to good old Airbnb to find somewhere to stay in Lisbon. I’m sure we’ve said this before but they are a really good option for us because it gives us the option to cook and prepare packed lunches which is so so so much cheaper than eating out all the time – all the money we save means we get to go to more places too!

This cute little apartment really lived up to its name – it was cosy as whilst being beautiful! It has absolutely everything we could even think of needing and was a great base to explore from. It was literally a 3-minute walk to Lidl (down a few steps) where we got our essentials, and only a short walk to the nearest public transport stop. It’s location is slightly North of the city centre, however this was no bad thing as it was super easy to get in there – we ended up popping back a couple of times for a quick shower before we headed back out for the afternoon/evening.

I honestly couldn’t fault this apartment at all, and our hosts Vina and Maria were super quick to respond to our messages – give it a look if you are planning to visit Lisbon!

What we did

I thought it best to group the attractions by area so you all have a better idea of what’s near what. Looking back at our list there’s so much on there I don’t know exactly how we fitted everything in but we did! So this is likely to be a bit of a long one but I promise it’s only to help you :).

Belém

Jerónimos Monastery

Probably the most impressive building in terms of size was the Jerónimos Monastery situated near the Tagus river. You can’t really get an accurate idea of just how massive this shrine in until you’re there – it feels like it literally extends for miles and miles. It is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its not hard to see why.

As you will probably notice as a theme when it comes to us, we decided not to pay to go into the monastery although it does have 4.5 stars on TripAdvisor so who knows, maybe we missed a trick there. However we were in awe of this building so much already, I don’t know how much more we could take!

Torre de Belém

Carrying on with the building theme, the Torre de Belém is another great thing to see here – but the queues to get in are renowned to be rather long especially as there is a traffic light system on the stairs – people can only walk in 1 direction at a time as its so narrow!

The outside of the building is a spectacle in itself, especially against the bright blue backdrop of the sky and the sea (well okay river but it doesn’t sound quite as good in writing…). Its original purpose was a ceremonial gateway to the capital for Portuguese explorers – it is certainly something worth seeing.

Padrão dos Descobrimentos

Another monument you can’t really miss when coming to Belém is the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of the Discoveries) – jutting out into the river, it celebrates the Portuguese Age of Discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries. Although David and I didn’t really know much about this history of Portugal before we came here, you could tell it was a poignant monument straight away.

The surrounding area was also pretty cool, with a world map on the floor and some great views to the other side of the river.

Pastéis de Belém

The sites are always good to see but another aspect to travelling is trying traditional foods. The first food that comes to my mind when Portugal is mentioned is custard tarts – so when my grandparents told me this was the best place they had bought a custard tart from in Lisbon I wasn’t going to miss it. There was a bit of queue to get in and the way they served you was quite industrial and efficient but that was because they wanted to make sure you got your pastries hot!

Each comes with a little packet of icing sugar and cinnamon so you can ‘season’ them to your liking – I added a little of each and went to town and oh my god was it good. I don’t think David was a huge fan (but we did only get one so he may have just been being nice and letting me have more…) but honestly I’m so glad I got to try one – thank you Nanny and Grandad!

Campo de Ourique, Lapa & Madragoa

Basílica da Estrela

This is a beautiful-looking church that we thought would be worth a look. We didn’t get to go up one if its two towers which we were hoping to do but it didn’t seem open for whatever reason, however we could venture into the church for free to have a peek inside . There is also a really lovely park just across the road which had a little market in it when we went which was fun to have a stroll through and look at some local artwork.

São Bento Palace

The Assembly of the Republic as it’s translated to in English is the parliament of Portugal and thought of as one of the supreme authorities in Lisbon. The have a pretty funky building which obviously was our main draw (when isn’t it?) and what I found super interesting is that the buildings original purpose was for a Benedictine monastery.

I think I read somewhere that the building is open to the public on the last Saturday of each month, so if you happen to be there at that time why don’t you go and have a look inside?? Let us know what it’s like, we didn’t get the opportunity!

Chiado & Bairro Alto

Miradouro de Santa Catarina

There seem to be an abundance of miradouros (or viewpoints in English) in Lisbon, each offering a different view of the city. This particular viewpoint has a bit of a partyish vibe in the evenings as it is home to a few bars nearby. If I’m perfectly honest I’m not 100% sure which of our many pictures is actually from the viewpoint, so I won’t put one because I don’t want to mislead you! I have a feeling there were better viewpoints around but if you have some spare time and are around here anyway, why not give it a look?

Igreja do Carmo

Although the roof was almost completely destroyed in an earthquake that hit the city in 1755, it still manages to look beautiful with its towering arches that can be seen from Rossio square. Supposedly the roof was never built as a reminder of the quake, but I think that makes it even more interesting! There is actually an Archaeological Museum inside the ruins which is pretty cheap to enter, and looking back I wish we’d gone in because I’m sure it was just as beautiful on the inside, if not more.

Steez Bikes Co.

A bit of a difference to the rest of the places on this list, however there was a reason as to why we went there – the name of course. As you may know David is a keen mountain biker and has to experience anything Steezy such as this shop. They do bike tours of the river but we unfortunately didn’t have time for that, instead we managed to get some STEEZ stickers off of them (David was very happy, as were his biking friends when they got their hands on them!). They also served some food by the looks of things, but as I said we didn’t have a huge amount of time to spend here unfortunately so don’t have much more to say.

I think I’ll leave it there for now because otherwise it may get a bit TOO long… but I’m working on part 2 as we speak so keep an eye out for it!

Stay safe out there everyone, hopefully this will all be over soon and we can get back to exploring the world 🙂

Happy travelling (soon!)

Zoe and David x

Written by Zoe