About four days before leaving Chamonix, we decided to head to Lisbon. Lisbon has been on our list of places to visit from the very beginning of our planning — primarily due to me watching Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix — we just hadn’t decided when to go. So, with three weeks between Chamonix and Florence, we figured it was a good time to head to Portugal. Midway through our first week, we sat with a nice local gentleman at lunch who helped us order and told us three weeks in Lisbon is too long . . . . But Lisbon is bright and sunny, they eat tasty egg tarts and drink nice wine, so we stayed.

We did get off to a little bit of a rough start due to some unfortunate housing snafus, but we turned it around. We stayed in Alfalma the first week, then in an area called Olaias (this was snafu part of trip) for about 5 days, and finally we are in Principe Real for the last week and a half. Principe Real is the winner. I’ll write about Alfalma and Principe Real in another post. Here, I just want to show you what Lisbon looks like!

It looks like this . . .

And this . . .

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Lisbon is reminiscent of San Francisco in a lot of ways – colorful buildings, a Golden Gate Bridge replica, it survived a massive earthquake (in 1755), cable cars/trams, and it has seven hills (weird how many cities have exactly seven hills . . . ).

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The streets and sidewalks are covered in large mosaic tiles that are beautiful and treacherous. Slippery when wet; for our Duke readers, it’s like hydroplaning on West Campus walkways, but always downhill.

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They decorate with tile! Blue and white seems to be the favorite tile color combo, which fits right in with my world view that blue and white are the prettiest.

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I love how pubic spaces are used. There are little stands in all the parks, squares, and along the boulevards where you can sit, eat, and drink espresso. Lisbon’s version of le cafe. We should have more of this at home, it’s nice.

A go-to spot for us became Timeout Market – a collection of all the best food in Lisbon, and a produce and meat/seafood market. We went many times. We also had fun walking around the LX Factory – a factory that has been redeveloped with lots of restaurants, shops, and work space.

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The Portuguese like salted cod, ginja (cherry-like liqueur), egg yolks, and canned seafood. Canned seafood comes in colorful, fun tins which definitely enhances the flavor and makes me want to buy all the kinds.

Lisbon’s coat of arms as depicted on a sewer grate. The ship and birds represent St. Vincent’s body being brought to Lisbon by ship and the ravens that guarded the body along the way. There’s more to the St. Vincent story with the ravens, but that’s the short version (and the version I understand). The coat of arms is everywhere, and it’s fun to spot.

I’ve got a few more posts on Lisbon, but to close this one out, it’s worth mentioning that the Portuguese people we’ve interacted with have been extremely welcoming (including some new friends and Duke alumni who were nice enough to make us a delicious dinner and give us all the tips). Glad we stayed the three weeks instead of bailing when the housing situation wasn’t going our way.