Portugal

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Last Wednesday, Nicole and I left for a five day trip split between Lisbon, Portugal, and Madrid, Spain. We flew out late Wednesday night to Madrid, where we passed six hours attempting to sleep on the terminal chairs (terrible memories!) before flying from there to Lisbon in the early morning.
When we arrived in Lisbon, we found our hostel, got all of our stuff settled it, and then headed out to explore the city. It was raining, of course, but I think we saw most of what there is to see in the old quarter of Lisbon that morning. Lots and lots of hills, my goodness, a couple of churches, a castle, and a look-out. Five or six friends from Mizzou went to Lisbon back in February and spent most of their time in a couple small towns outside of Lisbon and not the city itself, and that’s what they recommended to us. We took their advice and after glancing around Lisbon, headed off to the first day trip town: Cascais.
Cascais is just a short train ride away from Lisbon, but it felt like another country. It’s located on Portugal’s coast and is small and touristy. Xenia and Tyson discovered that there are bikes provided at spots around town that are free to ride for the day, so Frese and I found those right away. We road them about forty-five minutes up the coast, and it was AMAZING! Honestly one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. We stopped for a while to venture down to the rocks next to the Atlantic before returning and then ate ice cream at a shop that has supposedly won a “world’s best ice cream” award for the last two years. Breath-taking views and world’s best ice cream?? Cascais is my soulmate! 😊
Friday morning we started early to spend the day in Sintra, another small town outside of Lisbon that Tyson and Xenia had recommended to us. The number of castles and palaces there was incredible; they seemed to be everywhere. Frese and I had seen pictures of the one Xenia and Tyson visited though, so we decided to spend our time there. It was called the Quinta de Regaleira, and it was like a fairytale world. The mansion there was beautiful, but the grounds were where the real fun was. There were tunnels hidden all over, towers, wells, ponds, and caves. So cool! We explored it all for a couple hours before returning to the main part of town to eat some pastries from a shop that was endlessly praised by everyone who’d been in Sintra before. Yummy.
Beautiful coast, awesome ice cream, fairytale adventures, and perfect pastries. I will be visiting Portugal again someday.

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Photos

Lisbon
View from a look-out tower, designed by the same man who designed the Eiffel Tower

Hills and Hills
Lisbon

Cascais
Start of the bike ride up the coast

Frese!
Ms. Nicole Fresenburg

End of the Trail
Need I have more reason to want to come back some day??

Castles Much?
Sintra

Grounds
Quinta de Regaleira

Cool/Gross
Hmmm..