Day 2. Exploring Lisbon! Tram 28!

We got up at 7am, ate the usual hostel breakfast – toast and whatnot then rushed out the door to begin our 1st full day of festivities and exploration. Having the Lisbon card meant we could literally go anywhere.

Our 1st touristy destination was the national elevator that gives some glorious views of the vast city at the top. I love A good ol’ view so this had thumbs up from me. Scary part was envisioning the lift becoming the Tower of Terror. Now that would have been mind-blowingly insane!!

To our surprise we could leave the liftshaft without heading down to the bottom. This led us straight to 2 museums to help give more historical context on this interesting city.

The 1st museum gave us a locker for our backpack – a big change from the museum in Milan a few years back – and gave us a brief rundown of the history in the Wars for Portugal. Some cool stuff here and glad I visited. Getting to meet Fernando – this funny looking statue was a pleasure of mine…

The next museum was about architecture and the ruined cathedral messed up by the tragic earthquake a few centuries ago. This presented a lot of nice historical meaning and a cat, therefore I prefer this museum to the last.

If you are in need of some historical meaning, check out the Lisbon story centre. Definitely one of my personal favourite excursions of the day. You get a headset to listen to the story of how Lisbon rose to such elegance and how Portuguese found India etc. Firstly, my one was set in French so that had to be changed immediately.

This was until it went into detail on the disastrous earthquake. A shocking turn of events, which actually made my gut swirl watching the intense video.

Tram 28 is like a tin of sardines. The humans being sardines and the tram being the tin. We were all crammed into one little space but at least we got on safe and sound…

That was until getting chucked off at the end of the journey. No where near the hostel and no clue where we where. We tried entering the church but it was closed. Instead, we strolled through the park – having quite the appetising cheeseburger for lunch and going for ice cream afterwards. I had a refreshing watermelon & salted caramel flavours, respectively. It was very nice and fulfilling.

After this, we headed on the tram back into town. Due to this being the beginning of the next chapter of journey’s we managed to get a seat!

Getting off the hectic tram ride, we got views from Lisbon at the other end of town. It was beautiful. We listened to the street performers sing their peaceful melodies and walked through the old town streets which had quite the luxurious atmosphere.

Jorge’s castle sat above the rest of Lisbon and gave out some astonishing scenery from above. My favourite part of the day was walking corner to corner and taking in everything I saw: the palaces, the ocean, the awesome European red-crested roof tiling and nature. It was mesmerising.

Peacocks also wandered around the castles walls, leaving their charm in the area.

FOOD REVIEW:
Next up, we had to try one of Lisbon’s delicacies. What better place to do it than at the cafe which states they are the best at it. Finally, I got my saliva over the custard tarts. These were better than I anticipated. The custard was deliciously warm and lit an aroma in my mouth as I gobbled it all up. Definitely going to have another one before leaving the city.

Lisbon at night is a whole other place. Everything lit up just changed the surrounding district. It was heavenly and heart-warming. A nice chilling evening after a busy day.

We ate dinner at a buffet next to Hard Rock. It was okay, I was shocked by the number of times we had waiters carving meat and shoving the slob on our plate. My favourite dish was the sausages.

Before I wrap this blog up, I just want to say – one day with me and Graeme is the “typical” tourist. For a guy who doesn’t take photos, he has fed his gallery 72 snaps! Wowzers that’s more than me 😁