Last 3 days in Lisboa

I'm back in Vancouver! I know I haven't update all of you regarding our last 3 days in Lisboa. Reason being is that our hotel in lisboa is charging us $22 euro per day for internet!! I would imagine internet access would be more rare and expensive in small towns in Portugal. But apparently Lisboa is the most expensive. The other 2 towns we were at prior to this only cost $10 euro/day and $5 euro/day. Go figure. Thus, i'll do the update of the last 3 days in this post.

We drove into Lisboa from evora. We returned the car in the city since Lisboa is afterall the capital city of Portugal, which mean they do have subway and transit systems. But overall, I can probably sum up our stay in the city in two words. Walking and Tourist. Maybe we have been spoiled by the ruralness (not sure if there's such a word) and the rawness of the portugese culture the other 2 small towns had offered. It's like we were the only ones there exploring the country. Whereas lisboa is a whole other story. It is just like another european big city to us. Tons of tourist, urban, cars, subway and locals that speaks english. It was a little dissapointing. We didn't really feel so inspire to explore the city. B/c all we really have to do is follow where the crowd of tourists goes. We have also retired our portugese phrase book as most locals speaks english to us automatically.

Most of our touring were done on foot. As our hotel was located in part of downtown, we walked to all the tourist spots aournd and also to get ourself oriented on the first day we got there. The second day we did a walking tour following our Lonely Planet Guide book. Despite it's a WALKING tour and they have given us a map and written directions of where to go and what to see, we still managed to constantly get ourselve lost! We never ended up finishing the suggested 2 hours walking tour. It took us that amount of time half way. Then we got totally lost and end up taking a short cut to the final point of the walking tour. Roads in Portugal are not tourist friendly. But we did make a detour to this thing call Theives Market. They only have it on saturday. It's like a big garage sale in this square. There are both new and old things at the stands. But I'm not surprise if some of them are actually theives. Some of those people looks like the type that you would find on Hasting Street in Vancouver. The last day, we got ourselve a one day transit pass. Took the tram to yet another tourist spot, where they are famous for the Portugese custard tart. We bought 1.5 dozens. Mike ate 8 of them. I had 2. The rest were for my family. After that, we took the tram + subway to Oriente where this famous stadium (equivelent to ACC for toronto) and this big shopping mall located. Then we hop onto the subway again to Baixa Chaido. This cool, hip area to with small boutique shops and interesting restuarants equivelent to Queen Street west in toronto). Since it starting pouring out, couldn't really do much walking. So we went back to the hotel and chillax until dinner time. Then we went back to Baixa Chaido to find a cool dinner spot for our last night there. Ended up going to the Brazilian restuarant. Mike had duck meat and I had fillet mignon brazilian style. For dessert, I had a creme w/ passion fruit/ginger/peach, and mike had a pear sorbet with vodka. The food is pretty awesome. We didn't really buy anything in portugal. Our expenses were only for 3 things. Transportation, accomadation and FOOD!!! We spent $3 euro for sight-seeing. It's the entrance fee to the bone chapel in Evora. All the other stuff is either free There's really nothing much there is to buy. Their stuff is not exactly cheaper nor nicer. Nothing that i can't get in North america. Plus we're not really a shopping travellers.

Overall, i really like portugal. Food, people and culture. I would definately go back again. This time to the northern cities.