I knew little about Portugal before going, but what I did know was intriguing. I knew it had old roots, it had a history of conquests and was home to famous explorers like Vasco da Gama, making it a powerhouse of wealth. I also knew it had warm weather, incredibly picturesque beaches, fresh fish, port wine, and castles. This was enough for us, so off we flew to Portugal!
As our Ryanair plane descended into Lisbon, my face glued to the port window, I looked down at the city, sitting on the Tagus River that spilled into the Atlantic, and thought…
Have we been here before?
The bustling city and its colorful buildings was perched within the rolling hills, spilling out to the Tagus river which is wide enough to more like a bay. Crossing the river I saw a large red suspension bridge. It looked just like the Golden Gate in San Francisco! It looked eerily similar to the amazing city that Josh and I just recently left in Cali a couple months ago. I immediately grabbed Josh and made him look out the window to see the Golden Gate look alike and take a picture. (Of course I had to Google it later and it turns out that this bridge was actually built the same company who constructed the Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco, and has a similar burnt orange color as the Golden Gate. It too is one of the largest suspension bridges in the world.)
As we got into the city and explored around, we realized that Lisbon has much more than just its bridge in common with San Francisco. Not only are both cities sitting on the ‘west coast’ feeding into a massive body of water, both are actually built atop steep hills and provide incredible city and ocean views. Lisbon too, has cable cars transporting people (mainly tourists) up the narrow hilly streets past the tall skinny charming old buildings, each with unique character. Both cities have an artsy side to them; Lisbon’s streets are lined with murals and graffiti art, as you might see in San Francisco’s Mission district. You’ll also find a bustling nightlife in both, with musicians lining the streets and foods of any taste you might crave. And… unfortunately, both cities have suffered from crippling earthquakes that forced them to rebuild. One thing that I would say was pretty different (at least for us when we were there) is the climate. The five days we were in Lisbon it was warm and sunny, and fog free, which is harder to come by in San Francisco.
We both love San Francisco, so it’s no shock that we fell in love with Lisbon too. But there is something unique about Lisbon. As Europe’s second oldest capitol (after Athens), you can feel its years and its magic as you walk down the mosaic black and white tiled streets. Graffiti art and murals lining the walls, clotheslines towering above your head, and tapas bars in the streets hilly alleyways. It’s a city of ‘grit’, but mixes the old with the new.
We were there for a total of five days, but broken up in between our visit to the Algarves in southern Portugal. Our first day in the city Josh and I decided that a walking tour would be the perfect way to acclimate- we could learn about the history as well as the different districts so we had a better idea of where to head next. As always the walking tour was super interesting, although we definitely felt the burn as we walked up, then up more, then down a little and up more. Our guide named Cucu (hilarious name right?!) gave us some recommendations of where we ‘must go’ when in Lisbon, so that framed our next couple days.
After the tour we headed to the Alfama district, which is the oldest part of Lisbon, and definitely my favorite. It is the only part of the original city remaining after The Great Earthquake of 1755, which destroyed 85% of the city. Hiking up to this district was quite a workout since it was toward the top of the hills, but totally worth the view- you could se everything! The streets seemed to make no logical sense, and many of them were so narrow that cars couldn’t drive on them. There were street musicians playing everywhere, and the ambiance couldn’t be beat.
Lisbon is known for their
nightlife in the Bairro Alto district, so of course we had to check that out! The ‘bairro’ or ‘neighborhood’ resulted as an urban expansion of the city in the 16th century. By day it is a quiet neighborhood where people live, but by night, it has hundreds of little pubs and bars that the people living there open up on their first floor. They line the streets, and people drink either in them, or just outside in the streets.
What we quickly learned is that Portugal is a very late night place. You eat dinner around 9 or 10pm, then head to the bar around midnight, and party til the sun comes up. We didn’t know this our first night in town. Being new to Portugal, we hiked up to the district hungry and ready to check it out. We had dinner at an awesome tapas bar in one of the narrow streets, and even though there weren’t many local eating alongside us, it was amazing! After dinner we decided to try to grab a drink. All the bars along the streets were blasting music, but empty. 10pm. Too early. We quickly learned the action wouldn’t be happening for a couple more hours, so we called it a night, vowing to come back another time.
Being 30 makes you more strategic about your late nights- even though we can hang with the best of ‘em when we go out- we can only do that when we know we can sleep in and deal with the rotten hangover we’ll both have in the morning. Ahh…to be young again…
A few nights later we went back out again, on ‘Portuguese’ time, and it was absolutely amazing. Students, tourists, locals, people of all types were walking and hanging out in the streets of the Bairro Alto. It was packed, and humming with live street music, Portuguese ‘Fado’ and street vendors everywhere. We bar hopped from one hole in the wall to the next, and even grabbed some beers in local markets on the street. The place was buzzing with excitement.
My favorite thing: We walked past one of the dive bars toward the end of the night and heard this amazing violin music, and it was live! A young guy was playing his violin in sync with the DJ, to every song you could imagine, and was winging it! We sat inside listening and couldn’t get over how good it was. It was absolutely amazing. We ended up closing the night there, just listening to him play. You never see music like that at a bar!
The food in Lisbon was really great, and affordable too! You could get just about anything you wanted, but if you looked you could find it at a reasonable price. They love their tapas, Piri Piri chicken, and salted Cod (which we learned they cannot catch in Portuguese waters- they have to go much further north so it’s much harder than you’d think for how often they eat it). We tried a lot of different foods while we were visiting, and cooked some as well.
My two favorite places:
1.) Casa da India
This was a small little restaurant in the Bairro Alto that had cheap, authentic Portuguese eats (ironically not Indian food). We got the Piri Piri Chicken and some Portuguese sausage. It was delish!
2.) Time Out Mercado da Ribeira
This market opened this year, and it reminded us of something you’d see in New York or San Francisco. It’s a 75,000 square-foot food court inside an old fish market that has some of the city’s best eats in one place. We loved this because we could try lots of different plates for a good price, in a great atmosphere.
Lisbon is an affordable city, and as backpackers- we loved that! It’s easy to get around on the public transit system; they have a metro right from the airport to the city center, and an easy to use train and tram system. The city itself is very walk-able (but always includes a hill workout) and it’s a lot of fun to just keep walking until you find a new monument or nook and cranny you haven’t seen yet. It seems like there are definitely tourists throughout Lisbon, but it was not overly congested or too packed anywhere. People are incredibly friendly and fun, and it was easy to navigate our way around. Overall, it felt like a very unique and authentic experience, and I’m so glad we checked it out for a few days. To me, Lisbon was a hidden gem, and I hope to make it back!
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