let's go to visit our neighbor.

Long weekend? Olá Portugal!




When we landed in Porto the first thing we noticed was how lame their metro was. And no, we're not just biased because Madrid's metro is so baller. All five lines of Porto's metro run right next to each other (pointless) than break off at the end. You have to count which zones you are going into and swipe the card you buy passed these yellow guys.


I know what you are thinking. Yes, you can easily not swipe your card and never pay. But then this scary woman in a ticket costume will fine you.


Porto kind of looked like an older version of SF.



The river made for a neat water front town that would have probably been awesome in the summer. Not so much during the rainy season when you are literally the only ones out at 9 p.m. walking 2 hours to find a hidden wine tasting place that turns out doesn't even have wine tasting...



Portugal's traditional food includes a lot of seafood. For some reason though we just ate kabobs the whole time. We went to this lady's little kabob shop three times in two days. BFF!


After a three hour train we arrived in Lisbon. Did I mention we were staying in hostelworld.com's top hostel of 2008. So nice! Clean, decorated like an Ikea show room, countless information on the walls, and a super nice staff, complete with owner lady who welcomed us with hugs and made us milkshakes and pancakes. Lisboa Central Hostel. Stay there.


We visited Castillo de San Jorge, which was everything you want castle ruins to look like.


And is located on the highest point of Lisbon's seven hills.


Lisbon has 2nd largest aquarium in Europe (Second to Valencia, Spain. Sorry bout it.) Thumbs up to that !



We also went here, A Brasileria, the old stomping grounds of famous Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. He wrote under heteronyms, which is kind of like a pseudonym, but instead of simply hiding his identity with a different name, the heteronyms were actually fictional authors themselves who he wrote through.


They have a statue of him where he used to sit all the time apparently.



Artsy.


So this is where early 20th century intellectuals kicked it.


We took a day trip from Lisbon to Sintra. The castle that inspired the central Disneyland castle was only a 45 min train ride away. It was different than others we've seen with its cool colored facades. It was foggy so we didn't get the blue sky in the background but it was definitely still cool.




Portugal is famous for its pasteles de nata, a pastry similar to cream puffs. But better.


We waited at the "best" pasteles place in the line out the door. You tell them how many you want (only 80 cents each!) and they come in a little to go box with powdered sugar and cinnamon.


Yum!


After 5 days I've established that Portugal is Spain's cool neighbor with neat stuff to see but definitely not as exciting as Madrid. We're just spoiled.