Exploring Lisbon

So we made it! Finally, we are currently backpacking Europe and we start of in Lisbon, Portugal. Our travel down here went smooth and we found the "Home" Hostel pretty easily in the center of the old part of lisbon. We took a little walk around in the neighborhood and tried some local wine. Nice to be sitting outside at a street cafe sipping wine (and this time it was actually pleasent being outside, Carol!). Next morning we started touring around Lisbon on our feet. We walking up to the Sao Jorge Castle thats build on one of the hilltops. It was pretty cool and offered really good views of the surrounding city. After visiting the castle we explored the maze of old, narrow streets from the castle and down to the river. It was really cool walking around, everything there seemed to be placed so random at times with a patio here, birdcages there, clothing hanging outside in the streets and really really small doors. After walking for quite a while we started to feel the hunger and got tempted at an outside bbq restaurant. We decided to go for a whole grilled chicken and some water. It was 13 euros, so we thought our backpacker budget to take it! While we where waiting the waiter served of bread, butter, pates and olives. Cool, I love Portugal. So we went straight ahead and ate it all.. not knowing that all this cost EXTRA. Ouch, our 13 euros lunch ended up costing us 23. Live and learn kids ;)

The afternoon in Lisbon we spent going up to a suburb called Belem. Got a bit lost, but finally got to see what we come for. Here we also tried the local speciality, custard tart(or mustard tart as Kasper called it once), before taking a tram back home to the hostel.

Next day we went to a place called Sintra about 1 hour away. Here we started with a pretty steep hike to a moorish(muslim) castle. We had spent the night before getting drunk with local wine with some canadian girls, so we(read Messyna) was pretty hungover. We made it to the top though after a nice hike in a really nice forest, unfortunately we were dressed for the beach and the weather was cold and rainy. Again, live and learn kids! After the moorish castle we walked around Sintra a bit before taking the train back to Lisbon again. Next stop was Lagos, where we got late at night the 5th. More on this later..

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