Christmas trip to Lisbon, Portugal

At the end of September, my friend and I decided to book a Christmas trip to Lisbon (it was a toss up between this and Vilnius- but Vilnius was more expensive and colder so we decided it would be more of a summer trip). So at the end of first term, we jetted off to the land of custard tarts, liqueur and seafood.

As soon as we stepped out of the airport it was warm and sunny- and I instantly regretted not bringing my sunglasses. The metro was easy to work out, and on our first journey a family started playing Mans Not Hot. Wow, we Brits just bring our culture wherever we go...

Anyway, we stayed in a hotel near Martim Moniz called Pensao Nova Goa which was really cheap so I wasn’t expecting very much - and it wasn’t very much. The room was old fashioned, with not very nice sheets but was clean and we got breakfast so I guess we can't complain. The location was great as we were only a few minutes walk from the city centre.

We arrived late afternoon so spent the evening just exploring, walking around the city (there are SO many beautiful views and side roads) and soaking in the culture. The Christmas lights and decorations were everywhere, and everywhere we went were carol singers and Christmas stalls, which felt weird because it was so sunny and warm.

We found a pastry shop which was THE best place ever. It's called Pau de Canela and doesn't come up on Google Maps for some reason but it's near the Benfica store on R. Augusta (we found this out on the second day when we went back and couldn't find it, but walked around for half an hour to find it anyway because it was so good). The choice is amazing, the waiters were so friendly and informative and it was ridiculously cheap. We got these desserts for €1 each and it completely filled me up for the evening, not to mention how amazing it tasted. From the first day we decided we’d go back there everyday and try more and more. 

The nata is the traditional Portugese pastry which was absolutely incredible, and we tried so many different places for these but we liked these ones the most.

We also tried the Kinder Bueno croissant which was HUGE and various pastries with egg yolk fillings, which were so good. We tried a few more but forgot to take photos before we devoured them

This is called Bola and is essentially a doughnut with egg cream filling- I didn't really like the filling but the doughnut part was good. 

Melissa really played herself with this one- she bought it because it looked interesting but it turned out to be literally icing sugar and egg yolk so could not have more than a few bites, and they also charged according to how much it weighed so ended up being €5! On a side note, we didn't have all these pastries at once but I thought I'd put the photos all together. Anyway.....

After a lot of exploring and getting lost, we decided to get dinner and some Ginja, which is a specialty cherry liquor in Lisbon which was really nice (and strong). It came in the cutest little wine glass 

We had 2 full days after, in which we explored the city at a pretty chill pace. Almost everything was walkable, and we started with Castelo de S Jorge- man was I glad I wore my trainers not boots because there are SO many steps, which are worth it for the great views. There were also peacocks everywhere, so cute! If you go, don't forget to bring student ID as you get discounted entry (€5).

On the way back down from the castle, we took a side street Rua do chao de feirera as we wanted to walk to the sea, which turned out to be quite a long route but we ended up seeing Se Cathedral on the way as well as finding a shop which had the oldest company of Ginja, and the woman gave us a history and told us that traditionally the sweet cherry liquor is drunk from a chocolate cup, then afterwards you eat the liquor infused cherry cup. After giving us samples, we couldn’t resist buying some to bring back with us (the bottle even had real cherries at the bottom).

Elevador de Santa Justa is another beautiful sight in Lisbon. There is a staircase if you don’t want to pay for the lift at Carmo Covent and you can see the views, just a bit further down. After admiring the views, we walked around and stumbled upon a sardine shop which had tins of sardines for every year, which people were buying as gifts. We were attracted to the shop because it looked like a fun fair from the outside, and were surprised to see rows and rows of sardine tins, which was when we learnt about the love of sardines in Lisbon!

On day 3, we took a trip to Belem which was a 35 minute bus from the main city. Belem was beautiful- quiet, peaceful and by the sea. There was a outdoor gym with a view of the sea, as well as lots of things to see like the Tower, Monastery and Discovery Monument. There was a sign spelling LOVE which you could buy padlocks to add to it, and the money goes to a children's heart charity. We wanted to buy one but the stall was shut unfortunately, but it's such a nice idea

We couldn't go into anything as we went on a Monday so most things were shut, so we finished by lunch time and caught the bus back to the Edward VII park, which is a park essentially on a hill, which if you climb up you can see insane views of the city. There was also Winter Wonderland there, and we couldn't resist getting some Ginja shots in chocolate cups.

So there's a run down of the main things we did on our short trip to Lisbon. To be honest, we could have done it in a weekend, but it was nice to take everything at a slow pace and spend a lot of time getting lost in side streets and chilling in pastry shops and having long lunches and cocktails (you absolutely must try the seafood). It was exactly what I needed after a tough term. Now I'm hyped for the rest of December and the new year!

For now 
xx