If you’re in Portugal, you have to check out Lisbon. The city has a rich history chalked full of various cultural and architectural influences. The main food is fresh seafood with the fish of choice is cod (though oddly enough it isn’t native to there). We tried a few great restaurants but the coolest place was Time Out Market which is basically the swankest food court we’ve ever seen. It has around 40 different food stalls which all serve smaller, gourmet bites and cocktails. Some Michelin-rated chefs have counters here that serve a pared-down menu from their larger establishments. We ate here twice in our few days, it was so tasty!
Free walking tours of the city are also great so if in the city, be sure to take one. Ours was three hours long and covered a ton of ground on the history and culture of Lisbon. The guides seemed to be a bit cheekier than most we’ve seen so there were plenty of laughs along the way. A cool part was when roaming through the Alfama Jewish Quarter we were served shots of a homemade, cherry liqueur straight out of a little old lady’s window. She wore her lounging attire and would pour shots of homemade booze out of a pitcher for a dollar per shot. People would take pictures with her and she would scream out, “think about sex!” right before the picture was taken. Everyone got a kick out of her. The liqueur we learned is called “ginjinha,” made with infused ginja berries and is a Lisbon staple. We finished the tour with a nice dinner out in an open square of that neighborhood where they had singers performing live Fado music. The music is very passionate and historically it spoke to the misery women felt whose husbands worked on the rivers as many never returned. The music has evolved for other meanings but we were told this is where it all began.
One of the best parts of our time in Lisbon was our day trip to Sintra. This is a small city an hour train outside of Lisbon where you can visit beautiful 19th century Romantic architectural monuments, palaces and manicured gardens. It is so great it has been deemed a UNESCO world heritage site. The area has strong Moorish and Roman influences so the buildings are striking sitting within the beauty of the countryside. We spent a full day out there and really loved it. You can tell by the pictures below just how beautiful it really was. The main things we checked out were the Arabesque Monserrate Estate and Quinta da Regaleira. Both are must sees.
