Follow me to: Lisbon

Hello Lovelies!
I returned from my last Europe trip on Tuesday and here I am already writing a blog post for you (I call it ambitious you may call it…normal?).
Anyway: I efinetely need to tell you about Lisbon! Because Iimagined it to be SO much different then it really is!

Of course I informed myself about the weather and the city (you know: what to do, and what to see and where to eat, etc.!).
Clearly, I overread that Lisbon was (just like Rome) built on 7 hills.
And our hotel was on one of those hills…

But I won’t complain, because it was awesome to discover this beautiful city by foot!

On thing that will catch your eye right away are the tiles. Instead of just painting their houses, many portugeuse people plastered their houses in mosaics with colourful tiles!
It looks really impressive. The colours range from classical white and blue combinations to more popping ones like this one above.
There were lots of them near our hotel!

Coming to my first point: Our hotel!
We stayed at the “Casa do Jasmim by Shiadu” which is located near the neighborhood of Bairro Alto. The hotel iself is very beautiful and not too pricey. We were lucky and had the chance to book a room with a balcony. That was the best decision we coul have made!
When we arrived we were greeted with this stunning view!

We were so happy! It looked amazing.
The hotel is quite central so with a bit of walking you can reach quite a lot by foot.
What we didn’t know was that lots of people that had a night out went hrough our street to get home. We never had a good sleep and woke up more than once each night because someone out there was too loud doing whatever drunk people do.
Maybe ask to get a room that is faced away from the street.
Otherwise I can only recommend the Casa do Jasmim! The staff is very friendly and they are fluent in English and some also speak German. So that’s a plus!
Breakfast is served as a buffet and everybody will find something that he likes!
Another plus is that you get a key to the reception and breakfast room which enables you to have a coffee throughout the day!
I didn’t get the chance to make any photos from the inside of the hotel, but they decorated it in a lovely way!

On our first day we just roamed around the streets near our hotel. There are so many beautiful buildings around there!

It’s all so colourful and happy in Lisbon! There are so many colourful houses and crazy shop interiors!

On the next day we wanted to go a little further and went all the way to the Praça do Comércio. The area is really beautiful and you even have the chance to have a little beach moment.

We loved it! There are a lot of restaurants but you need to know something: Don’t go into restaurants where waiter stand outsid an invite you in! Those are “tourist restaurants”. We where warned about them by relatives and the hotel staff. The reason is that they serve okay food but sell it for way too much money!
After a bit of searching and looking around we found a very VER small restaurant (it literally consists of a bar and three tables).
The name of the restaurant is “Aurora“. They serve excellent portuguese food and we didn’t have to pay much for it! If your in this neighborhood and hungry, I’d recommend you to go there (if you get a table!).

The next day was a bit….problematic I’d say.
We wanted to go to Belém (another neighborhood in Lissabon). The easiest way to get there is to go by train. Tickets cost about 3 Euros (a return ticket is included in this price).
But when we got to the train station there were huge queues on each ticket automat and even at the information centre….
We decided to wait and buy a ticket but when it was our turn we made a mistake and spent money for nothing. We tried to figure it out on our own as there was no information staff anywhere and there were not enough info given at the automat. We were SO frustrated…
Also on this day it was extremely hot so we decided to just return to the hotel and stay there.
We had a nice day and when we got hungry I had the idea to use our balcony! So my boyfriend went and bought some bread, Pastéis de Nata and other yummy stuff. And it was the best idea ever!!! Just look!

For everybody who doesn’t know what Pastéis de Nata are – I’ll explain it to you:

“Pastéis de Nata” are little pastries filled with something flan like that tastes a lot like Crème brûlée. To keep things short: Don’t think about it just try it because it is AMAZING and you will get addicted! Not even kidding right now!
We got the Pastéis at “Manteigaria” which makes the “second best Pastéis in Lissabon”. The “best” – and oldest- Fábrica is located in Belém and is called “Pastéis de Belém“. If you didn’t try the Pastéis at Manteigaria and are in Belém: please give it a shot because everybody we asked just loves those!

Speaking of Belém I’ll jump right to our last day.
We didn’t want to leave Lissabon without chehing out another neighborhood. SO we gave Belém and the central station another shot. And this time it worked!
If you ever want to go by train: the automates there give only one ticket each time! so you have to choose one ticket and pay ad THEN buy the next ticket! Remember that!!!
Trains go every twenty minutes so it should be no problem to get to Belém.

Coming back to Belém. Oh gosh. It was absolutely worth the chaos!
I loved the tower and the sea so much!

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To be honest: I know Portugal since I was 6 months old. My family visited at least once a year and I am very familiar with the people and the landscape so it kind of made me feel like home!

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Belém was everything you wish for: Sightseeing, restaurants and the sea!

Doesn’t it all look oh so lovely??
We strolled around and when we got hungry we went to the “Darwin’s Café“. The food wasn’t cheap but not way too pricey and tasted amazing! (And doesn’t it look amazing as well?)

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see more of this beautiful city, so I hope that one day I’ll get the chance to return there!

If you have any more questions regarding my trip or anything else, feel free to leave me a comment or contact me on my social medias!
Until then:

Love,
Franziska