Belém: Where People Really Go When They Go to Lisbon

In our short experience with Lisbon, we realized pretty quickly that the "big sights" were actually a bit outside of the main city in the historical port of Belém.  This was the place where all the ships during the height of the age of discovery set off down the coast of Africa.  So, Belém is the place with all the big memorials to exploration, the old port tower, and of course, the amazing Jerónimos Monastery.

This monastery, I mean, wow.  First, it's blindingly white and absolutely huge, covered in the most intricate carvings and elaborate columns and arches.  Which, you know, is fitting since it was pretty much funded by the huge influx of money Portugal got from importing spices in the 15th century.

I remember being particularly in love with how every column was completely unique, but the entire place as a whole still came together without looking absolutely insane.  It was hands down the most amazing place we saw in Portugal.

Right in front of the monastery, where the sailors would have their last mass before heading off into terra incognita, you can walk across a giant plaza covered in Lisbon's famous black and white mosaics and toward the giant Monument to the Explorers and the Tower of Belém.

For such a hugely important place, it's actually not super easy to get to - we ended up taking a taxi, actually, but it's totally worth it!  

And, after you see it all, get a little sunburned, and learn waaaaay more about the age of exploration than you ever could have imagined, you can go to the little, famous bakery next to the monastery and get yourself some Pasteis de Belém - the pastry of Portugal, a little custard filled tart that is kind of mind-blowing.  Sit out under the trees (because shoot, it's hot there), and take it all in.  

Lisbon: Wonderfully Unexpected

We went to Lisbon is August, so...hot.  Yes.  And one of the more vivid memories of the trip was us waiting in a searing hot street with no shade for forty minutes for one of the old-timey trams that were supposed to come every ten.  It was one of those situations where we waited, decided to switch sides of the street, then the tram would come right when we left, and so then we'd wait again, and switch sides, and the tram would come on the other side!! etc.  It was hot.  It was frustrating.  We didn't like it.  Bleh.

BUT, on our second try enjoying Lisbon, we really warmed up to it...and the trams too.  Our better plan that day was to just take it easy and not feel like we had to check off fifteen things in an afternoon.  That kind of jazz just isn't the way things go over there on the Iberian peninsula. 

So we went to the aquarium, strolled around the castle, got the view at the top of one of the more picturesque hills, and wandered down into the old (oooold old old, tiny alleyways, clothes hanging out to dry between buildings, cobblestone, etc.) Alfama fisherman neighborhood around dinnertime. 

I remember turning a corner to see a little restaurant where you ate on tables in a tiny courtyard underneath the shade of a single ancient olive tree with lights crisscrossed above, it was just a little bit of magic - and the bacala deserves its own special mention. 

I don't know, it was just...so...nice to take a day to just wander around and come across things on our own.  We don't let ourselves do that often enough in our trips because most of the time we're so worried about regrets for missing a "big site", but I have to remember that, for me, the best memories have usually been the little discoveries - a particular black and white pattern on the sidewalks (Lisbon is famous for the black and white mosaic sidewalks), a tiled wall in a flowered courtyard, a neighborhood ice cream shop, peeking out of the open window of a trolley car as it goes up a narrow hill street, coming up from the metro by our hotel at the bull fighting ring stop and walking it's red and yellow walls (surprisingly smaller building than I'd expected) one last time. 

We had a really nice time in Lisbon, you know.  Really nice.