portuGALS

I cannot believe that I have just completed my final trip of abroad.  The next time that I will be in El Prat is in two weeks, when I depart back to NEW YORK!  For my final trip, Riana, Mattie, Lauren, and I went to Lisboa.  After traveling to eleven cities, I feel like Lisbon was definitely my favorite, if not top three.  I have traveled a lot and a lot of the places that I went to abroad were my second or third time around, so I was anxious to travel to new places.  We all settled on Lisbon for our last trip and we could not have had a better weekend.

We stayed at the Sheraton Lisboa, and while the location was not in the city center, the hotel was nice.  I think that with a walking city like Lisbon, it is better to stay in the city center, rather on the outskirts like we did.  The weather was on and off the whole weekend, yet that did not stop us from walking around and exploring.  We met up with Jacob and his friend and explored Chiado the first day.  Chiado is an artsy neighborhood filled with beautiful stores and trendy boutiques.  After finding a small little place for lunch, we went go carting throughout the city.  I highly suggest Go Car! as a way to tour the city.  You can take different tours and each go cart is equipped with a GPS system and an audio tour.  We had a few mishaps with the go carts, getting caught on tram tracks and having to push them up the hill, getting caught in the rain, but after an hour we were caught in pouring rain and returned back to the beginning. Don't you like our yellow ponchos?  FASHION STATEMENT!

For dinner, we went to Solar Nos Presuntos.  It was an authentic Portuguese restaurant filled with locals and very few tourists.  Jacob and I split the seafood paella, as I was craving mussels.  Carlos, our fabulous waiter, showed us that in Portugal, it is totally fine to be drunk at work.  I thought he was great, and he saved himself at the end of the night by giving all of us a flower!

The next day, Riana, Mattie, Lauren, and I went to the Oceanarium in Lisbon and to be honest, if you have kids its a great thing to see, but personally, I would not put this on my "must see list".

After the aquarium, we took a TeleCab across the water and then it was off to Belem Tower.  When reading past guides, I was under the impression that Belem was an area with cute shops, either I was totally clueless and missed this area, or we were given the wrong information.  We were all hungry so I turned to spottedbylocals.com for a lunch spot, and was guided to Vertigo, a great place for salads and sandwiches.  After lunch, we went to Santini, the best ice cream place in Portugal.  We walked around the Chiado area and stopped by the best view in Lisbon.  (look at the picture, isnt it pretty?)

We went to Nood for dinner, also found on spottedbylocals.com.  It was an Asian Fusion bar and it was good, but I definitely think it is worth exploring the seafood restaurants, as everything is so fresh.  That night, Lauren, Jacob, and I went out to Barrio Alto, where the neighborhood is filled with bars.  In Lisbon, it is okay to walk around the streets with your drinks and everyone socializes in the streets.  We bar hopped and met a group of locals who took us to their favorite spot.

I was there for three days and did not see the entire city and could spend days walking the streets.  It is definitely a place that I would love to go back to, hint, hint, Mom & Dad -- next trip with the Price family?