Lisboa

Lisboa is a beautiful city - large plaças, Moorish castles, hilly (and slippery) cobblestoned streets, without the feeling of being overrun by tourists. The tiled exterior walls are even more stunning here and thankfully, there is finally a breeze!







Apart from gorging ourselves on custard tarts (see right), cheese pastries and other very yummy pastries, we've done a lot of walking - between the plaças in Baixa (the commercial district), up to the castle in the old Alfama district, between the restaurants on the hills in Bairro Alto, around Belem and especially on our day trip to Sintra.


Sintra was beautiful - it used to be a retreat for royalty and still has that well-kept feel about it. We talked our way into the palace (see left) and walked up to the castle, stopping often to refuel on pastries.


Dinner is around 9pm here and we've been filling our evenings with fado concerts (amazingly passionate Portugese singing - see right) and port & cheese evenings. (I'm really starting to like port).

Lisboa is also the place where Mel and I go our separate ways... very sad to leave her :(