Il Viandante: Love Letter to Lisbon, Part 1: Tuesday

I blinked and already five days passed by in beautiful Lisbon. Honestly, Lisbon has surprised me. I’m not sure it is just the city or the fact I did a lot of hostel adventures with really amazing people. Probably both. Lisbon was definitely a country where I didn’t have any specific plans for but wanted to check out one day. For the first time since Rome, I don’t feel so ready to leave. Here I am, so utterly in love with Portugal.

From the Moorish building tiles down to the smooth cobble stones neatly decorated, and from the blue skies down to the sparkling blue Atlantic shore.

Since I landed, I’ve been constantly on the go. I was either out late and didn’t have the time to write for my blog or I had to get some decent sleep since I had to get up early and therefore didn’t have time to write. Every day was a perfect sunshine, barely any clouds and was in the solid 80s. Which... if you know me, would be too much for me since I prefer colder air, but it suited Lisbon. And I got tan.

I posted a picture of my hostel last post at the end for a sneak peek. The hostel has been so incredibly accommodating and acts as an easy central hub, since it’s close to the shore and literally in a train station. It is so clean and has a lot of environmental initiatives, in part because the station is a national monument. There are dorms, women-only or mixed as well as private rooms which seems to be popular with families with kids. I will return to Lisbon one day and I will likely come back to the same hostel. I love it here.

So, when I landed early afternoon on Tuesday and dropped my stuff at the hostel - the first thing I did was explore the square around the station and explored the majority of the central area of the city called Baixa-Chiado. Went up a shopping street, got iced tea from Starbucks and walked the streets until I reached the shore.

From there, I walked back to my hostel to drop off my camera and figure out my next steps. My hostel offers a bunch of tours for really decent prices. Day trip tours to short (free!) walking tours. I debated for a while on the spot - I am not usually comfortable in group tours or events since it’s so hard for me to follow along, especially so when there’s countless accents involved. But I took a leap and booked a Fado tour that same night.

Fado - said to be derived from Lisbon’s streets. It’s a soulful music sung by amateurs and professionals to a strumming lyre or guitars in bars and restaurants hidden away pockets of the city. When I got to the meeting area, we almost had to cancel it because I was the only one who signed up ... until one more person signed up, then two, four, ... five people! My tour guide gathered us in the hostel reception area around 8pm and we started of with drinks from the hostel bar. Here I met Paulo from California and Harrison from Tennessee, a woman from Brazil and and a cute young couple from Ireland whose names I’ll never be able to pronounce, but I can spell, Gráinne and Peadar. We chatted for about 30 minutes and all got along great. Our tour guide gave us the run down of the night: we were to walk through the Rossio Square and to Alfama, which is the old town area. We’re to go to a small restaurant called Fora de Mado.

We headed out to the square and took us along the streets through Alfama up winding hills and over bridges. He pointed out some buildings and squares and gave us history background. We went to a palapa overlooking the ocean and got a nice skyline view at night. We eventually got to the restaurant and sat down.

As part of the tour, we were to get a drink and some tapas. We ended up getting many drinks, tapas AND. a full meal. Ooh, so full! Every 20 mins, the lights shut off and three singers sang three songs per round. I had no idea what they were singing but it was soulful. Food was good, though I panicked and ordered a simple chicken salad since I didn’t understand the menu recommendation. Next time I will try the Bacalhau com Natas, or codfish with cream. My tour guide offered me some of his and it tasted SO good. Portoguese green wine was so good, I had about three glasses.