3 nights in hilly Lisbon

The view of Lisbon
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Our first experience of staying in a hostel happened in Lisbon. We stayed at a place called the Oasis Backpackers Resort, situated in Barrio Alto, the ´party´ area of town. It was definitely a lot of fun! We met lots of people from all over the world, including Canada, USA, South Africa, Germany, Venezuela and of course Australia. The hostel had huge 5 euro dinners every night so we were able to try Portugeuse chicken and other good dishes. Everything in Portugal is so cheap. You can buy a good bottle of wine for only 1 euro! Apparently the average monthly income here is only 700 euros, which explains a lot.

St Jeronimos Monastery
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Well, we are on the way to getting thighs of steel! Lisbon is extremely hilly and we did a lot of walking around the city. On our first night, we went out to listen to some traditional Portugeuse music called ´fado´ with some people from the hostel. As a side note, we have been offered hash and cocaine about 30 times (I am not exaggerating!) since we arrived here. There are so many drug dealers, they appear out of nowhere at every block. There were 2 policemen standing about 20m away, but one guy didn´t seem to care and came up to us anyway.

We are on the way to getting thighs of steel!

The Tower of Belem
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Anyway, on our second day, we decided to take another bus tour of Lisbon, and the nearby town Sintra, as we had limited time in the city. But this time, we regretted it because the bus was not open topped or hop on/off, so everything was very rushed. We did get to see the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, the Tower of Belem, the Discoveries Monument and some great views from the tops of various hills though, so it gave us a good snapshot of the city.

Sintra is an old town about 45 minutes away from Lisbon which has about 4 different castles and palaces, including an old Moorish castle on the top of a huge hill. The town was so pretty, and even though the tour only let us stay there for 1 hour you could easily spend a whole day in Sintra. I think Sintra is my favourite place so far, and I definitely want to come back and spend more time here later.

Sintra
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Next, the tour took us to Cabo do Roca (Cape Rock), the western-most point of continental Europe. The view from here was amazing, with huge cliffs and fields of flowers. We then drove on along the coast through Estoril and Cascais, resort towns which all had great long beaches.

On our last day in Lisbon, we took another walk around the city. We went to St George´s Castle, which dates back to the 10th century and offered breathtaking views of the city. They have a periscope in one of the castle towers here, so you can get a 360 degree view over Lisbon. We then travelled back to Belem, where I was determined to visit a world famous store called ´Pasteis de Belem´that supposedly has the best Portuguese custard tarts in the country. And I wasn´t disappointed! They were very good and we bought some to take back to the hostel to eat later. Richard also tried a savoury chicken pastry which he really enjoyed. Apparently this place sells about 1000 tarts a day, and it was packed with people. Definitely visit if you are ever in Lisbon!