We arrived in Lisbon quite early in the morning by European standards, and decided to have a quick breakfast in the Alfama neighborhood. I ordered a Bifana, which I read is a traditional Portuguese sandwich made of white bread and pork. But nothing beats a good scrambled egg for breakfast 😋
The owners allowed me to work that morning at the cafe (I still had deadlines to beat) before I headed out to explore Lisbon. Lovely people. Cozy place. Good food. Obrigada.
We only have a day in Lisbon, so I went ahead and got myself an Uber to get to the Ajuda National Palace. It used to be the residence of Portugal’s Royal Family, but now it’s mainly an underrated attraction. For a time, I was the only visitor inside the Palace, and my heart almost dropped when I saw an unmoving woman sitting on a chair in one of the rooms. I thought it was a 👻 ghost!
So make sure to bring someone with you when exploring this place. It can be creepy. But the rooms are very interesting. This one, which served as a living room for the royal family, was my favorite.
There were no guided tours, unfortunately.
While waiting for my friends to come back from Sintra, I decided to chill out at Sol Brasil, which sits just across the Santa Apolonia train station. My battery was almost depleted, and my power bank was all used up. Thus the laptop for charging. I wish I remember what I had, but I couldn’t understand the menu as it was not in English. But it’s like Lechon Kawali with mayonaise dip. And of course I had beer. I loooooveee drinking cold beer in Europe. I need to recreate that in Manila.
Dinner! After using up all our energy to get to our airbnb, Eula and I decided to head out for dinner, first at LX factory, where there’s a good amount of nice restaurants with outdoor seating, and a bookshop!
But Eula was craving for something greasy, so we headed out to Time Out Market, which was a good decision! Not only were there more food offerings, but a really fun dining crowd! There were people dancing in the middle of the food hall. Fun!
Here we decided to ear bar style. I don’t recall what we ordered, but it’s good! And the waitress was cute! And we had Red Sangria, which was a bit strong, but still finished it like water!
I bought a set of Pastel De Nata, or egg custard tarts, which Portugal is also quite known for. Sadly, never got to taste it. But my friend said it was good!
On our second and last day in Portugal, the plan was to go to Fatima then Porto. But a friend in emergency and all of us tired, plus the fact that the trip to Fatima will require about 2-3 hours, we decided to just chill out in the morning and go straight to Porto in the afternoon, which is also 3 hours by bus.
Here, Eula takes a photo of me with Tram 28, which is notorious for being a tourist favorite and full of pickpockets. I disliked Alfama for the stairs and for all its inclines, but realized it’s such a charming neighborhood. I would visit it again, but maybe stay in a different place downtown.
We spent the morning eating good food at Salsa, before going on an amazing race to catch our bus going to Porto. We didn’t get a chance to go around anymore, as we needed to be in the airport to catch our flight to Amsterdam. What an adventure. But it’s only the beginning.