Exploring Lisbon

June 6, 2024

Tom was up at 7:30 after the best night of sleep he’s had since we’ve been here. He let me sleep in and woke me up at 9:30. I couldn’t believe how late it was! I guess I really needed the sleep too. We got ready and headed out to explore Lisbon.

Our plan of attack for the day was to find a tourist information center to figure out the best way to see Lisbon, be it either a hop-on hop-off tour or a tuk tuk tour. On the way to the main touristy area, we saw the Santa Justa Lift and knew from watching Lisbon You Tube videos that you could actually get to the viewing platform without paying and taking the elevator. Tom pulled up the GPS and led us to the “back door”. It was perfect! We didn’t feel the need to wait in a super long line just to ride the elevator and we got great views for free.

View of St. George’s castle from Santa Justa Lift

We left the tower and set out to find an information station. We finally came across one back in an area of town we passed last night on our way to the restaurant. We were originally thinking of using the same hop-on hop-off company we used in Porto as I think there would have been a 10% discount, however there was nobody manning the kiosk. Another hop-on hop-off tour operator (the Yellow Bus) was available and more then happy to help us. We decided we would get more for our money taking the hop-on hop-off bus than a couple of hour tuk tuk tour.

We got our tickets and boarded the bus at Noon. There were 17 stops on the blue line route that we were on and we weren’t planning on getting off until stop 11 so we had plenty of time to sit back, listen to the audio guide, and enjoy the sites of Lisbon.

Stop 11 was the stop for Belem. Belem is on the Tejo River and was once the port from where the Portuguese navigators set sail. We walked to the Torre de Belem (Tower of Belem), a Unesco World Heritage Site, and it marks the location from where the Portuguese explorers set sail. We discussed buying tickets to go inside, but the sign said it was an hour wait. We didn’t want to waste that kind of time in line so we settled for viewing the exterior.

On the way to see the next site, we stopped for lunch in a little outdoor food court. The free sample of the pork got us. It was so tender and flavorful so we ordered a plate to share. It was an excellent choice. So tasty!! I love pig!!

The little food court was very close to The Monument of Discoveries. This is a pretty epic statue. Details of when and how it was built are included in the link (https://padraodosdescobrimentos.pt/en/monument-to-the-discoveries/).

Next up we crossed under the street to get to the other side to see the exterior of the Jerónimos Monastery on our way to Pastéis de Belém (https://pasteisdebelem.pt/), a pastry shop that claims to have invented the pastels de nata. In 1837 they began manufacturing Pastéis de Belém, according to an old recipe from the Jerónimos Monastery. We have had a lot of pastel de natas since we’ve been in Portugal, but this felt like a must stop. We tried just one pastel de nata, but ordered a couple of other sweet treats. All were very good. I feel like I don’t have to have another pastel de nata for a couple of days though.

Having our fill of sweets we walked back under the street to get back to the river side to walk to the roof of the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology building to take in the view of the 25th of April bridge. The bridge is reminiscent of the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. The 25th of April is significant as this was the day their dictator was overthrown in 1974.

We hopped back on the bus at Stop 13 and continued the rest of the blue line tour. When we arrived back at stop 1, we decided to get right on the purple line bus and ride the route in it’s entirety. There is a chance for rain tomorrow so we thought it would be best to knock this out today. The bus left at 5:15 and we were the only ones on it. This particular line headed to the modern side of Lisbon. One of the most interesting things we saw on this ride was the Oriente Train station that was designed by Santiago Calatrava. Folks from Milwaukee might recognize that name as that is the same architect who design the Milwaukee Art Museum. We were also impressed with our bus driver as he made a hairpin turn with another bus that was coming the other direction. It was pretty impressive. The bus ride was pretty long and we arrived back at our starting point just after 7:00p.m.

Tom told me it was my turn to pick out dinner, so I said I wanted pizza and he handed me the phone with a bunch of highly rated pizza restaurants listed. I scrolled through and picked the one that said it was Italian style pizza. Little did I know I picked one that was on our way back to our apartment, so that worked in our favor. We shared bruschetta and a mushroom pizza. Both were excellent! We also tried a German cola called Fritz Cola that was also pretty decent.