Lisboa!

From Capitol to Capitol

We caught the night bus from Madrid to Lisboa, which is something we’re making a habit out of. It’s an easy way to save money on a night accommodation, but not exactly accommodating. In theory this is a great idea; reality sets in when, after hours of trying to fall asleep, you are woken up by the jerking of the bus breaks, and you nearly slam into the seat in front of you. Regardless of a crap nights sleep, it still saves money, which is the important thing  (For us at least!)

Loved this bridge!

We arrived in Lisboa at around 4:30, well before our estimated time of arrival on our ticket, 8 am. Not sure how that happened but luckily we were at the main bus terminal and night buses were still running. To the center of town we went to try and kill time before we met our CS hosts; 12 hours to exact.

We did the tourist thing for about an hour, walking around snapping some photos of the architecture and such, but we were quite tired and in need of a comfy sofa and some air conditioning. We took turns napping in Starbucks, taking advantage of the free internet when conscious.

Violation….

We DID notice there was a festival going on called Two Oceans! In the middle of a square there was a massive blow up aquarium with chairs and fishies everywhere! When we went inside, we felt like we were violating someones private parts lol! And so we went on to meet our couchsurfers, Sofie and Nuno! She has been on couchsurfing since 2005 and was definitely the most experienced we’ve stayed with! We had our own room in their cute apartment just outside of the city…we changed..and went straight to the beach! It was nice and sandy and the water appeared nice, but as soon as my toe touched the water, i noticed how FREEZING it was! I didn’t think anything could be as cold as the river in Bern, but this was too cold for me to swim! The town was really cute with lots of markets and windy streets! We grabbed some Italian gelato hehe and called it a night!

The next day was really exciting for us, because Sofie and Nuno lent us their car!! It had been 4 months since we’d driven! Of course…i couldn’t drive since it was stick shift, but Brad drove us out to a mystical little town called Sintra! It was full of palaces and gardens and more palaces! We chose the Quinta da Regaleira based on Kelly’s recommendation! And so glad we did, because we LOVEDDD it! There was a beautiful old palace, and lakes and a massive garden but then BEST part was the underground tunnels that ran throughout the gardens. Some of them were pitch black, some led you straight into water, and some were even blocked off (apparently they went across to the other side of town!) We spent hours wandering around…highly recommend it!

Rapunzel’s tower!

Tunnels!

Afterwards we drove up to Pena castle which Kelly reckons was what the Disney castle was modeled after (I don’t see it haha sorry Kel!) and the Moorish Castle which overlook Sintra! Unfortunately we couldn’t see much without paying to go…so had to skip it! I think they offer good deals if you want to do combo passes though!

So on we drove to the western most point of mainland Europe…Cabo da Roca! It was cool to look out to nothingness…but it was WINDY!!! Snapped some pics and got outta there! We came home to a delicious meal that Sofie cooked for us. It was a dish made with Codfish which is apparently very typical for Portugal, and it was sooooo good!

Western most point of Europe!

We visited a few botanical gardens and other parks in the city! It was Brad’s first time at a Botanical garden and it was kind of whack…no cool flowers or colors! Just trees! We left Lisbon with a great opinion of Portuguese people and food…and Sintra was definitely the highlight of Lisbon for us!