Lisbon, Portugal – home of the world’s greatest tram-cum-rollercoaster!

When I first envisaged travelling in Europe this year and was plotting out my itinerary, I’d never really planned to visit either Portugal or Spain. The only country in western mainland Europe I’d contemplated going to was France, to go back to Paris because I didn’t get to do a few things I really wanted to when I was there in ’08. When I was looking at EasyJet routes and there were a couple which stuck out at me and allowed me to book from Liverpool to Lisbon, and then from Barcelona to Dortmund (in Germany) ultimately making the decision to skip returning to Paris. It’s a decision that I do not regret at all, even if it is making my central/eastern Europe schedule a little tighter than originally anticipated. I bring to you a reflection of my experiences in Lisbon – I was going to mush Portugal and Spain together but it was becoming a ridiculously long entry so I’ve broken it up.  

Lisbon, Portugal

First impression of Lisbon – wet. The day I arrived was wet and miserable. However it was obvious I’d left Britain because instead of that sharp windy chill that comes with British rain, was a more muggy damp feeling, like the rain I’m accustomed to.

I had high expectations for my hostel – there were about six different hostels rated between 95% – 100% on hostelworld which means that it is a great town for backpackers – they’re all competing to get the clientele and they’re doing that by upping the ante in the hostel amenities and experience front. As an avid budget traveller, I find comparing different hostel experiences rather interesting. I'm not going to go into detail about every hostel experience I have, but when I do have a particularly good one or bad one, I think it’s worth offering a summary of my experience, and Yes!Lisbon was definitely a positive hostel experience. What was interesting about Yes!Lisbon was that ‘technically’ it’s a party hostel but I never felt like it was one. I think this is the greatest achievement a hostel can make – to be able to cater to different demographics. Quite honestly it ticked all of the possible hostel boxes – really cute dorm rooms with individual lamps, your own power outlet and  little shelf, a table and stools in the room, nice common area, computers for free public usage, wi-fi throughout, a decent breakfast (plus was scrambled eggs, minus was charging for juice), and an awesome location. They did walking tours, pub crawls, hostel dinner – so if you’re into group activities, they’re available.

Apart from the afternoon of my arrival, the weather was lovely, perfect even – any warmer would’ve been uncomfortable (like in Madrid). I must confess, I knew almost nothing about Portugal before arriving. There was a girl in the dorm on the night of my arrival going on about how ‘fado’ was an essential Portuguese experience and I nodded along pretending I knew what she was talking about when really, I was clueless. I did a quick Google search to give me a starting off point, to at least understand the various districts and the public transportation available. Each day I bought a daily public transport ticket – I think essential in Lisbon, between using the funiculars and the trams going through the hills, you can easily make use of it.

See the roadworks under the arch... classy

 

Portaloos and everything!

My first day kind of felt like an anti-climactic beginning, as I started the day for a look around a whole new area of Lisbon, which was built up mostly for when Lisbon hosted Expo. Lots of modern architecture filled the area and it really felt so generic that I could’ve been anywhere in the world. I also took a wander around the Praco Comercio, which is the closest ‘square’ to my hostel, but thanks to the roadworks going on, it made me feel like I was back in Edinburgh! 

The only really cool thing in the whole Expo area... flags of the world

This meant the day could only go up, which it did. I headed up the main tourist strip to the stop where the majority of the trams a tourist would need would go from, and started out by taking a trip on the city loop tram, Tram 12. Honestly, I could just do this loop over and over. When these trams go through the Alfama district, it is almost like a theme park ride, dodging tourists, twists and turns, almost ramming into cars that are double parked. The sites are incredible, and then you reach the top of the hill where you have an amazing look out with an utterly stunning view. I did the Tram 12 circuit twice that day, and then did the whole length of the Tram 28 circuit, which takes you through Chaido and into the suburbs.

Trams navigate these crazy narrow streets and alleyways

The amazing view. Unable to be captured via my camera.

On my second day, I started out heading down for a look at the monastery and some monuments at Belem, before heading back into the city centre on the tram to go metro hopping – I do this in most cities when I have time, I like to spend half a day going to random places on my map, anywhere that ‘sounds’ like it might be pretty or have something significant. If you get off the metro where lots of people tend to get on or off, often you find you come across a major street, shopping centre or business district. I also spent more time wandering around the streets of the city centre, with a few major ‘squares’ and all the tourist traps – street performers, beggars, souvenir shops and the like.  The street performers and  beggars harass you while you’re eating lunch at outdoor cafes, as well as people selling random stuff – stolen, I assume. One guy was walking along the tourist cafe strip (I say tourist because they have multiple menus printed in multiple languages) trying to sell sunglasses; the police swooped in, riding a segway, came up from behind the guy and literally confiscated the sunglasses from him and left.

Monastery at Belem

 Most awesome looking bar ever - the patrons sit on bean bags!

Day 3, I focused upon hunting out all of the funiculars, or elevadores. Lisbon is famously hilly and the development of this concept is rather genius – one of them is literally an elevator, but the other three are essentially one carriage trams which allow you to skip a steep walk and rise up to the neighbourhoods higher up by just taking a ride on the funicular. They aren’t very time efficient, with long waits between trips, but they are a tourist must. I paid for the viewing deck which is at the main Santa Justa elevator, with a giant queue waiting to take the trip. The view was absolutely spectacular. 

More stunning views, from the viewing deck of the Santa Justa elevator

I found the three other elevadores, taking the trip up and looking around the district. In particular, this provides access to the Bairros Altos and Chaido areas. These were really fun areas to wander around in, with narrow alleyways which looked seedy and deserted by day and at night, suddenly transformed into cafes and restaurants.

One of the elevadores, funiculars, whatever you want to call them!

And another elevadore...

My farewell to Portugal was longer than anticipated – thanks to the air traffic controllers in Portugal striking intermittently throughout my day of travel. I’d originally planned to get a bus or train to
Madrid but made the last minute decision to book a flight. I’m not sure when the strike was called, or if should’ve known about it. My flight fell into one of the non-strike periods but a whole series of other flights were cancelled. Ours was moved forward about fifteen minutes, but the incoming aircraft was late and the result was that we weren’t going to be ready to take off before the strike recommenced so they were forced to delay the flight by two hours. It was okay, we got free food at the airport, and they boarded us really early so the delay only felt like about an hour. The flight was interesting, I was sitting surrounded by off-duty flight attendants and one of the on-duty flight attendants was like, their personal attendant, constantly talking to them. I felt like telling him to find something better to do, because I barely had ten minutes where he wasn’t crouching beside me or standing over me. This was only exacerbated when the guy on the window actually wanted to look at some of the sky mall products, and chatty guy had to bring him all this stuff to look at. Finally, the guy bought two of the ugliest watches I’ve ever seen, they remind me of those slap bands, do you guys remember those? Horrid, these watches were. Not sure if he was Portuguese or Spanish, it may have been a bad sign for the city ahead, or a sign I was lucky to be leaving Lisbon behind.