Guys! I made it back to Europe and needless to say I fell in love with it all over again. Four years was a long time to be separated. The coffee, the culture, the language, it’s like all those old feelings from first studying abroad come rushing back and I’m as excited as a little girl in a candy store. I want to try everything, shamelessly pose for pictures against the pretty tiled walls, and eavesdrop in any Spanish conversation I can find amongst other tourists. I’ve given up all hope for Portuguese, it’s like German, French, and Spanish all meshed into one. So I’m just sticking to Spainish tourists, haha. Must brush up before meeting with my host Mom on Sunday!!!
We started off the day in the Praça do Comércio, aka the Commercial Plaza. This used to be the city center where the king lived and all the goods would come from the ports through here and enter the city. Oh how I’ve missed my plazas.
Also, my best friend from the U.K., Jes, has been in Portugal for the past week and today we reunited!!! It’s crazy how for the duration of our friendship we have only met up in foreign countries (well minus when she met me in LA but that was foreign for her so it still counts).
The statue we are posing behind is of the man, Sebastião de Melo, who basically helped rebuild the city after a huge earthquake that destroyed everything in 1755. The king at the time, Joseph I, went crazy after the earthquake and decided to never live within four walls again and moved himself to the outskirts of Lisbon and lived in a tent for the rest of his life. So thankfully his prime minister stepped up for the reconstruction of the city.
The funny thing is, I just came back from San Francisco only to find the Golden Gate Bridge in Portugal!!! Of course I had to take ....
What cracks me up about Portugal is that I literally found a knock off Golden Gate Bridge and Christ the Redeemer. So I took the Steamy Alpaca to Brazil and San Fran in one trip!! I didn’t know this but actually there have been a lot of comparisons of Portugal to San Francisco. The same bridge, tall skinny colorful buildings, 7 hills etc. Honestly if you were to ask me Portugal is 1000000 times better than SF. The biggest reason being that it’s nice and sunny and I’m not freezing my butt off haha. Also it’s crowded but not in the same way and everyone here is so friendly!! Seriously I was a little bit worried about being the “American” again, especially with my 4 word Portuguese vocabulary but we’ve gotten by and everyone has been super helpful telling us how to avoid tourist traps and the best attractions.
This is the Santa Justa Elevator. The whole city is super hilly and so this elevator was created in the late 19th century for the elite ladies so that they could do their shopping in the main city and then instead of carrying their bags up hill they took the elevator and crossed a bridge back into high society.
The city is every Instagram bloggers dream in terms of painted or tiled walls. Needless to say Nayyirah and I had a lot of fun posing and doing mini photo shoots :).
No matter how many locals laughed at us in passing, you’re only in Lisbon once right?
See what I mean?
So here’s the story behind this Saint. Santo Antonio is actually the saint for lost people. However, in Portugal it’s the saint for women looking for husbands. Basically this girl wanted to get married and kept praying to this saint for a husband. After a long time passed and she had no success, she gave up and threw his picture out the window. The picture happened to hit a man passing below and he went to return it to her. When they met it was love at first sight and they lived happily ever after. So now, every June 13th the city pays for 13-15 local couples’ weddings in his honor. And if you’re asking if I lit a light or gave an offering, you obviously forgot who you’re talking to, this chick has law school to go to! But for all my friends and unmarried readers, you have 36 hours to put in a request for yourself hahah.
We intentionally got lost in the Alfama with all the narrow alleys, corridors, and stairs.
But look at the view we found!!! We stumbled upon this observatory and could see the whole city! I want to live in the powder blue home. How cute!!!
The perfect end to the day was stopping for fresh gelato. Can’t wait to eat this every day for the next two weeks!!!
Fun fact, the whole city is tiled (buildings and floors) which is beautiful but makes a rather precarious walk. I’ve almost fallen down a couple of times going up or downhill, good think I’ve got pretty good balance. The black and white tiles are actually Roman influence, and the colorful tiles you saw yesterday are Moorish influence. Who knew?
This is the tower of Belem, which served as both a guarding tower and hosting place for both governors and dignitaries. They were either hosted in the chambers upstairs or locked away in the prison cells down under. Being the loud mouth, opinionated woman that I am, my stay here in the 16th century would have most likely been in one of the lovely prison cells.
