The train ride from Porto to Lisbon was very easy. When I arrived, it was quickly connected by subway as well so just hopped on the subway to the nearest stop of my guesthouse and quickly found my place to get situated.
There’s a huge avenue in the middle of the main area, and my guest house was just off this main shopping avenue so centrally located.
That afternoon I went around Lisbon wandering around down to the water and back up for a nap.
The next day I met up with Pedro, a Liboner and became a great guide of Lisbon. That afternoon, I joined a walking tour to get some history along with my wandering around.
That evening, Jessica, a friend from Austin came to Lisbon as well so we got to meet up and enjoy some great food.
The next day we all headed to sintra for the day to check out the fairy tale like castles that preside over a mountainous area just outside of Lisbon. We took the train after an amazing run for the train as it was shutting our doors. Jess’ ticket didn’t work and amazingly we got her in through a random ‘security’ guard who got her in the gate.
We didn’t get any seats being this last on the train, but we sat on the floor and the ride out to sintra was easy.
When we arrived, Pedro had actually driven to meet us and we got to enjoy his company through the trip. We had a decent lunch which then tried to charge us so much over it was like an imaginary person. They triple charged the couvert of olives to be almost $10, triple charged our meal which only two of us had, and added an extra glass of wine. Turned out to be over $25 of overages–scandal.
We were pretty bummed about sintra because the beautiful castle is being completely redone, apparently all at the same time so shots of the castle all had scaffolding. It was fun to see the inside and see appointments of furnishings and such of that time.
We drove back to Lisbon with Pedro and got a good dinner. We were starving after our full day.