porto and lisbon. lisbon and porto
its been over 2 weeks since i've been back from portugal and yet i can still taste lisbon's warm gooey nata cakes from pasteis de belem,
porto's perfectly balanced dark and sweet galaos from nata,
and the deceptively strong port wine pretty much everywhere portugal.
and the deceptively strong port wine pretty much everywhere portugal.
for far too long portugal remained on my top 3 countries to visit and for reasons unknown it remained this way. there is so much to say about tiny portugal and yet alot of its beauty i feel comes from what is not said. its hard to explain portugal's charm and beauty and i wish i could be more objective but something ethereal dwells here, something rare that only a few cities have:
belgrade, serbia
essaouira, morocco
montevideo, uruguay
well, myself along with 3 friends finally decided to tackle portugal.
our first stop: porto
we landed early in the AM and after a rookie mistake on my part (forgot my passport in the seat-front pocket of the plane...palm to the face) we were off. we took the metro into the city which only took about 1/2 hour and one transfer.
it never fails when you hit that moment as you're riding the escalator up from the metro when you tell yourself "ok, i'm finally here!" as if the beginning of your story was about to fade from black.
daylight and broken clouds greeted us but just like that we were finally in porto. it was late in the afternoon. it took us a minute to figure out our bearings but when we did we quickly found our way to our hostel. we stayed at this place called tattva and it was probably one of the best hostels i've ever stayed at. the staff was friendly, the rooms were exceptionally clean, and its location leaves you minutes away from pretty much everything. also a big shout out to andre, the tattva hostel worker who treated us like royalty and made me tasty mini pancakes every morning.
scoped out the beutiful duoro river
enjoyed fransiqueñas and late late night bifanas
rented a car and followed the yellow signs north into spain and visited santiago de compostela
took a train and visited guimaraes, the birthplace of portugal and enjoyed my first galaos.
our stay was short, too short. i felt myself dragging my feet as we walked to porto's train station.
our next stop: lisbon
we took a morning train and spent the ten extra euro to ride first class; fancy us. it was a quick 2-hour train ride that included a 6-ounce cup of coffee and great views of portugal's countryside.
lisbon's metro took about the same as porto's and with ease found our way to lisboa central hostel.
ok, so i'm starting to think that this might be a portuguese thing but hostels in portugal are on point! to be fair though i've only stayed in two.
lisboa central hostel was a slam dunk for all of the reasons of tatva but not when it came to pub crawls. i felt bad for barbara - our pub crawl group leader - and there can only be two possibilities that would account for such a bad pub crawl and before i even get into it, how do you even mess up a pub crawl?!
its kind of like messing up making a burrito, although someone has made me a crappy burrito before so i guess i get it. so this how i see it, either barbara has no soul who could care less about us and the pub crawl or she was completely out of her element stuck with this hostel duty that by the look of it was very awkward for her to do; i went with the latter. i found myself getting mad at barbara at times for the awkward situations she placed us in, but then i would get sad for her and just smile.
the next morning was much better. we took a walking tour through old lisbon and the following day we took another one through alfama. i like walking tours, they're a neat and fun inexpensive way to learn the history of a city, its neighborhoods and the people that live in them.
i took a strong liking to alfama.
sleepy alfama seemed so separate from lisbon. from the alfama side you get a nice view of lisbon and the praça do comercio (commerce plaza) where all of the ships would dock and unload/load cargo back in the days of exploration. the weather in lisbon couldn't have been better.
we also went inside some extravagant and significant churches, most notable the church of nata cakes AKA pasteis de belem. we heard horror stories of the notoriously long lines but i think we only waited 20 minutes max to secure the goods. the nata cakes from this place are supposed to be the best and prior to this, we'd had a few and they were all good in my own honest opinion so when i took my first bite, it didn't taste new; it was simply damn good!
the last night we finally were able to squeak by and find seats to enjoy some fado at this place called a tasca do chico. the previous night we tried getting seats 1/2 hour before but the place was packed. this time around we got there about an hour before and we still had to wait to get a seat. seeing fado performed was a great experience and had i drank another glass of port wine, i too would've broken out in fado.
enjoyed fransiqueñas and late late night bifanas
rented a car and followed the yellow signs north into spain and visited santiago de compostela
took a train and visited guimaraes, the birthplace of portugal and enjoyed my first galaos.
our stay was short, too short. i felt myself dragging my feet as we walked to porto's train station.
our next stop: lisbon
we took a morning train and spent the ten extra euro to ride first class; fancy us. it was a quick 2-hour train ride that included a 6-ounce cup of coffee and great views of portugal's countryside.
lisbon's metro took about the same as porto's and with ease found our way to lisboa central hostel.
ok, so i'm starting to think that this might be a portuguese thing but hostels in portugal are on point! to be fair though i've only stayed in two.
lisboa central hostel was a slam dunk for all of the reasons of tatva but not when it came to pub crawls. i felt bad for barbara - our pub crawl group leader - and there can only be two possibilities that would account for such a bad pub crawl and before i even get into it, how do you even mess up a pub crawl?!
its kind of like messing up making a burrito, although someone has made me a crappy burrito before so i guess i get it. so this how i see it, either barbara has no soul who could care less about us and the pub crawl or she was completely out of her element stuck with this hostel duty that by the look of it was very awkward for her to do; i went with the latter. i found myself getting mad at barbara at times for the awkward situations she placed us in, but then i would get sad for her and just smile.
the next morning was much better. we took a walking tour through old lisbon and the following day we took another one through alfama. i like walking tours, they're a neat and fun inexpensive way to learn the history of a city, its neighborhoods and the people that live in them.
i took a strong liking to alfama.
sleepy alfama seemed so separate from lisbon. from the alfama side you get a nice view of lisbon and the praça do comercio (commerce plaza) where all of the ships would dock and unload/load cargo back in the days of exploration. the weather in lisbon couldn't have been better.
we also went inside some extravagant and significant churches, most notable the church of nata cakes AKA pasteis de belem. we heard horror stories of the notoriously long lines but i think we only waited 20 minutes max to secure the goods. the nata cakes from this place are supposed to be the best and prior to this, we'd had a few and they were all good in my own honest opinion so when i took my first bite, it didn't taste new; it was simply damn good!
called"saudade"
our walking tour guide tried to explain and he even asked a random man in alfama to explain it also. what i took from it was this:
its that foolish longing for something or someone you know you'll probably never get back. its the feeling you get inside your bones when something subtle like the scent of a flower, perfume or shampoo rocks you in the most awful and at the same time wonderful possible way. for a moment, everything stops and pains from the past resurrect but not enough to open any stitches.
...so lets just say that suadade and myself are familiar with each other.
i got a bad case of saudade the following day as we packed our stuff and headed back home. we weren't even out of the hostel and already i was beginning to miss portugal. out of all the western european countries that i've traveled to portugal is probably my favorite.
its been over two weeks and i miss portugial, did i mention that?
