Hey everyone! I’m sure you all know the drill, but I (20M) am the study abroad student in London who’s attempting to travel as much as possible during my time in Europe. This weekend (plus an unexpected additional half-day) I went to Lisbon. Portugal was one of the countries that I most wanted to visit, so I was excited at the prospect of spending 10 days there during my reading week. Unfortunately for me, the department that the classes I’m enrolled in does not have a reading week, so I had to split my planned trip in half across two separate weekends a month apart. Here’s Lisbon and as always, mile counts are added below:
Day 1: Lisbon
Because the beauty of Lisbon comes from just walking around the city and exploring the various viewpoints of the city, that’s exactly what I had spent the bulk of the first day doing. In the morning, I wandered aimlessly throughout the hilly Barrio Alto before honing in on the Miradouro Sao Pedro de Alcantara. There were some cute fountains and gardens on the balcony and of course, beautiful views of the city with the castle looming in the distance. From there, I passed by an interesting church before looping back down to the Praca Luis de Camoes and strolling down the streets before I reached Rossio Square, which had some lovely fountain-show going on and had some great views of both the simple but pretty architecture of Lisbon’s golden and white colored buildings but also of the Carmen Convent rising up from behind the buildings. After a bit of exploring the lively streets and briefly glancing at the prominent elevator, I made it to the aforementioned Convent and checked it out. Unfortunately, repair work blocked off views of a portion of the Convent, but I loved how skeletal the remains of the Convent looked like, with stark, swooping arches that probably used to support a grand hall of some sorts. Afterwards, I made my way to a viewpoint near the Convent that gave great views of Lisbon’s dense streets and buildings before heading down to the Placa de Comercio alongside the coastline. It’s a large, gorgeous plaza flanked by bright, golden colored buildings with elegant arched walkways and a cool statue as a centerpiece. From there, I walked alongside the coastline a bit before u-turning back to explore the Alfama district, a hilly neighborhood with dense, winding roads and staircases.
I made my way to the Lisbon Cathedral, which has a castle-esque exterior with a beautiful circular, floral-inspired window, before walking to the two famous viewpoints of Miradouro da Santa Luzia and Miraduro das Portas do Sol. Both were these very pretty balconies with trellises covered in magenta colored paper flowers that nicely complemented the blue mosaics while offering great views of the Monastery and Pantheon that popped out from the sea of buildings. As the sun began to set, I made my way to Sao Jorge Castle. It’s admittedly quite a bit smaller than most of the castles that I had been to (most comparable to the one in Malaga) with a bit of an underwhelming museum compared to the detailed ones of Edinburgh castle, but it more than makes up for it with stunning views of the city. Because it was cloudy around the horizon, I knew that I wasn’t going to get a stunning afterglow like Paris, but even then, at times that clouds would partially cover the sun, leading to half the sky being showered in gold while the other side being covered in darker blues. There, gazing at the thin band of orange on the horizon as the crescent moon glowed in the sky and the yellow city lights twinkled below me, is where I ended my first, amazing day in Lisbon.
Mile Count: 13.7 miles