Travel Diary: Lisbon part #6

Goodmorning everyone! 

For the last time, I'm taking you with me to Lisbon. The very last day of my trip I went to Belem. This is not so far away from the citycenter of Lisbon if you go by car or train. Belem is very well known for their pastries, as you will see in a little bit.

It's also the place where you can discover the most about the Portugese explorers and see the Portugese presidential house - which is pink!

One of the first things we went to visit was the place where they make the Pasteis de Belem. People wait in front of the stores to get in all through the day. You can not only buy a couple of pastries if you'd like, you can also see how they are made. Nobody knows the full recipe, everyone knows a little bit and they do thesame job every single day - so they can never figure out the recipe and go to the competition.

So yummy!

Wouldn't you think you're in San Fransisco?

The tower of Belem! So gorgeous! It's completely surrounded by water and there were so many fun details and stories!

One of them is of an elephant. Portugese people loved elephants because they thought they were really big, great, strong animals.

One day, the Portugese explorers got a rhinoceros as a gift. All of Portugal, even the rest of the world, had never seen anything like it.

 What were they going to do with it? Not slay it to eat, first, they were going to let it fight. 

They put the two animals in front of each other and as soon as the rhino started walking, the elephant ran off - after that, they didn't like the elephant as much anymore.

This trip was lovely - it really was a unique experience going away on my own (very scary but turned out to be a- okay!) 

This is the end of my Lisbon Travel Diaries.

I hope you enjoyed sharing this experience with me! 

See you soon!

Travel Diary: Lisbon part #5

Hi everyone! This is my second to last post about Lisbon! I'm taking you on my foodie tour as well as to the Carmo Convent. It's right in the center of Lisbon, not far away from Bairro Alto (the neighbourhood with loads of bars and restaurants) and it's gorgeous! 

I started my day by having some tapas! I ate prawns in garlic (which a friend recommended to have) and a white sangria. After I filled my tummy, I started walking and ended up at the Carmo Convent. This convent has been partially destroyed and was never rebuilt. It's quite impressive to see and I can only imagine what it must have looked like before the earthquake.

The inside of the convent is not that big but there are loads of things to see. There were even a couple of mummies!

After visiting the Carmo Convent, I went out for food with a local girl I met at the Hard Rock Café! We went for sushi and on the way there, the mall was beautifully lit up - too pretty not to take a picture!

That night I had the most amazing sushi I have ever had in my life - I never thought I'd have to go to Portugal for that, hah!

We had sushi with kiwi, marshmellows and even strawberries! What an experience!

I had a blast that night and made some new friends!

I'll see you soon for the last part of my Travel Diaries! 

Keep safe!

Travel Diary: Lisbon part #4

Happy Fri-yay!

We're beginning to reach the end of our Lisbon Travel Diaries. Two more posts and then that's done too! Even though it hasn't been that long ago, I still enjoy looking back. Going on a holiday on my own is something that I have never done before but it was such a cool experiment and I have learned so much from it.

Just like in the last post I wrote on Lisbon, I'm taking you back to Sintra. Sintra is 45 minutes away from Lisbon by train and it has the most beautiful castles. This post focusses on Pena Palace - which is unlike any castle or building you've ever seen. I feel like the Pena Palace looks like something that a kid could have drawn: the design and the colours are so extraordinary!

 

It's really hard to get a picture from a good angle because there are so many people walking by, so many angles, so many different things you want to capture and just so little space on the little screen that you're holding.

This is what the palace looks like when you walk up. As you can see it has many different levels and the first thing that probably gets your attention is the bright yellow.

 

The beautiful entrance with many gremlins on the walls and different kinds of beautiful textures.

This picture right here must be one of my favourites. You can see the beautiful yellow part as well as the red part of the castle (which was closed down for renovations, unfortunately) and you can tell how high up this castle was built. From here, you could see the Moorish castle as well.

Oh and that skyline!

 

 

Are we in Hogwarts?

Inside the castle you could see a vanity, showers, bathrooms, bedrooms, lounges (...) from former kings - and different generations.

It was so beautiful and I can only imagine how luxurious it must have been! 

After that trip, we went to a local wine shop where we had some Ginja (a cherry liquor that you drink out of a chocolate cup) and some local beers.

That's it for today! Thanks for reading!

Travel Diary: Lisbon part #3

Hi! Welcome back to my blog! 

For those of you who can't get enough of my Travel Diaries, I've got good news! I have some more pictures for you today.

This one focusses on a part of my day trip to Sintra. Sintra is about 45 minutes away from the center of Lisbon and it's absolutely gorgeous. There are castles everywhere and it's no surprise that this is the most visited location in Portugal.

Quinta Da Regaleira is the first castle I visited and I've got many pictures to show you so... Let's go! 

This first castle we visited was not even from a king. It was from a very wealthy trader. It's called "Quinta Da Regaleira" and this is what a real life Disney castle would look like. The first few seconds I saw it, I really couldn't believe it looked like this. So, so beautiful!

 

 You could walk hours in this place. It's so beautiful and surrounded by a lot of green. There are many levels to go on and many secret passage ways.

One of the most fascinating things I saw here was this well. It was believed that the trader was a member of the Freemasons. If you wanted to become a member too, there was one challenge for you. That challenge was to go into this well at night and find your way out of it by following underground ways. This wasn't very dangerous but it was more symbolic.

After visiting the first castle we went to grab a bite at a local restaurant. This was so yumm! Rice with goat cheese quiche. And you know what? The goat cheese didn't even taste like goat cheese. Normally I'm not a fan, but apparently they have very nice goats in Alentejo, where this goat cheese comes from.

They also had "green wine" which wasn't really green, but it was a very sweet white wine. And it costs next to nothing! 

This was so nice because it was so hot outside that we could sit in our T-shirts without being cold. In November!

 

Although I didn't get to go inside the Moorish Castle, we did get to see it from a few different points of view. This castle made me think of the Chinese wall!

I hope you've enjoyed this post! Keep reading the next few parts for more on my Lisbon adventure! 

Have a really good day! 

Travel Diary: Lisbon part #2

Happy Thursday everyone! About two weeks ago I wrote my first Travel Diary from Lisbon. 

I was - and still am - very impressed by Lisbon and the many things I've seen there. 

I've taken so many pictures that I can't fit them all in one post (you'd be reading for about an hour) so I decided to split them into different posts. Today I'd like to take you away from the cold December weather and back to the warm and cosy Lisbon.

The biggest part of this post is going to be the Oceanarium that I visited in Lisbon. I love underwater worlds - they are truely fascinating and can be so gorgeous! It was really fun to see some of the fish and crabs that I watch on "Tanked" and "Deadliest Catch".

I'm also going to show you some things that I saw on my way over. Mostly, a lot of grafitti art! Have a look!

The Ocenarium had a big tank where you could walk around. Each level made a different kind of fish visible and it was just so cool. At the bottom of the tank you saw different things than at the top of the tank.

I felt like a little kid in a candystore. On the way in, there's also a few posters with species that are dying and what the Oceanarium has done to prevent that. Very interesting!

 

This is for sure one of the most beautiful places I have been to. I think I spent about three hours just walking around and then I spent another hour just sitting in the seats that look out on the big tank. The last thing I saw as I was on my way out was this shark. He was so close and right on my eye level. Exciting for sure, but as he got closer, I got out! 

Thanks a lot for reading! 

I hope I'll see you on Saturday! Have a good one!