Jó reggelt, szevasztok…

… And thanks for stopping by to read the 2nd part of my Lisbon adventure. If you happen to not know anything about Pt. 1 then click HERE like right now, cuz otherwise, I will just throw you into the deep water pretty much in 2 seconds and you will be like: whaaa?
And I will be like: just read it already!
And you: stop forcing me
And me: Bitch, $%#& … focus
And you: shut up
And I will be like… reported.
… And we don’t want that.

Hi and welcome to my blog 🙂

This post will be a bit more adventurous, I will tell you how we ended up at the edge of the World… also our trip to Sintra and Cascais. We will have a collab with Jesus in this post… And a sardine.

Shall we?

So on my actual birthday, we planned a beach day with unlimited caipirinhas and of course a little sightseeing on the side so we chose to visit Cascais which is a very Mediterranean coastal town roughly 30 km away from Lisbon in the area called Riviera Portuguesa. Probably the easiest way to go there is by train from the Cais do Sodre railway station. The train will take you for like 5€ – return –  all the way through the coast, with a nice view of course, and it’s passing by the touristic district too such as the Belem area and all.

We wanted to stop at Praia de Carcavelos cuz I heard you can learn how to surf there. Which is one of my dreams… But unfortunately we found out that you can’t just go there and have one lesson… you need to sign up for few and have like a beginner course or whateva… and we had no time – sad face –
So we ended up in Praia da Rainha which is a small beach compared to the others BUT it is very beautiful, surrounded by the old town, many bars cafes and restaurants. Hint: If you want to chill out on the beach then take some cash with you, because the beach bar only accepts Portugues credit cards. So we had to go and search for an ATM, we found one but it was out of order, the other one was at the train station. It was a bit of a pain in the ass but we wanted those goddamn caipirinhas.

According to TripAdvisor, there’s one more beach in this area that worth to be mentioned, even though we had no chance to visit it… It’s called Guincho Beach. And the list could go on really…
I will leave here few links about Portuguese beaches if you interested check them out:
The Guardian – Portugal’s top 10 hidden beaches
ZigZag on Earth – 12 Best Beaches in Portugal

On our way back to Lisbon we decided we want to have a traditional Portuguese dinner. We found a place called O Galhardo Tapas Bar & Petiscos. Apparently, this is the perfect place to experience Lisbon, and sure it was! The waiter – owner? – was very friendly and welcoming he cooked few items in front of us and ahhh, it was amazing. We ordered like 6 tapas to share. The most memorable piece was a sardine. Everywhere you go in Lisbon you see sardines on pictures, postcards, fridge magnets, keychains, on graffitied walls. Sardine is a fucking Icon there.  And well… just so you know when you order sardine in Portugal don’t expect for those 4 cm long, tiny, headless, boneless creatures that coming from a can…

…Cuz you will get a whole fucking fish staring at you from a slice of bread.
After our first shock, we dared to taste it and it really was amazing. Just try not to think about all the inside parts and eyes and … stuff.

Next day since we overslept – damn those caipirinhas – and had no more time to waste we hopped into an Uber and headed to Santuário de Cristo Rei – but before we hang out with Jesus, let me tell you that my experience with Uber in Lisbon was just fucking amazing.

…Nuno if you are reading this please hit me up Meu Amor…

The drivers were so friendly, chatty, very welcoming and helpful – and handsome… Nuno if you are reading this please hit me up Meu Amor –  They had small bottles of water to offer for us as a gift,  they told us everything about the city. Seriously guys, A+ service. During one of our Uber ride the car broke down, and the driver immediately stopped the meter, apologized million times even though it wasn’t his fault at all and called a friend who picked us up and he didn’t want to accept any money. But I will leave the best Uber story for later about the nicest man on Earth, probably.

So… Cristo Rei is one of Lisbon’s most iconic monuments, inspired by the one you can find in Rio De Janiero – bucket list for me by the way, fingers crossed for 2019 –  This was our second attempt to visit the sculpture, because well who would’ve guessed, they have opening hours.

…inspired by the one you can find in Rio De Janiero – bucket list moment for me by the way, fingers crossed for 2019…

We thought we will go there after sunset for an amazing view and night light pictures since the monument’s height is 110 meter…  Well nope, go home. They are closing at 6:30pm. So yea, Google is our good ol’  – bitch –  friend. But anyway… It was lovely during daytime too… But imagine the night lights then…

Unfortunately – or not at all … – we missed the bus that would take us back to Lisbon, so we had to call an Uber again, and we met the nicest man on Earth. As usual, he was very friendly, and helpful. He literally stopped halfway on our journey and told us to go down straight ahead on a tiny road, check the panoramic view from the leg of the bridge… and then turn right and walk next to the coast till we will find a restaurant called Ponto Final, have a drink there and watch the most amazing sunset of our lives…  We were a bit skeptical, but …

… he was right.

It was the most amazing moment of my life. I was just staring at the view quietly, and saved every second of it to my memory – and social media.

For our last full day, we planned we gonna get up early and go to Sintra.
Sintra is magical, it became one of the most popular day trip from Lisbon – but to be fair a day wasn’t enough for us to look around properly you can easily count with a long weekend there.
Sintra looks like it’s coming straight from a fairytale – or Narnia? – and it is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s a very Instagram-worthy photo op that is set on the top of Serra de Sintra.
Getting to Sintra from Lisbon is easy with a train that you can catch from Rossio station. The journey takes like 30 minutes and a return ticket is 5€ or so. Hint: book your tickets online or try to arrive waaay earlier to the station and queue for few hours to get your tickets. When we were there only ticket machines were available to use and only like 4 of them. Needless to say, we wasted shit loads of time for just waiting, and it was only beginning of May, I can’t even imagine how are things during the summer season.

…Sintra looks like it’s coming straight from a fairytale – or Narnia? …

After we arrived, we walked around in the old town for a bit we tried the famous Queijadas de Sintra – you can read about it in Pt. 1 – Later on, we decided to take the Hop on Hop off sightseeing bus tour. It’s offering 2 lines. The blue is a shorter one, and the red is the long. We took the red, and our first – and almost the last – stop was the Palácio da Pena.
Important info: even though you have your hoponhopoff tickets, you still have to queue – Portuguese people just love to queue for ages I swear – to buy tickets if you want to go in somewhere. I don’t want to sound like a Bitch, but I am not sure if it’s really worth it to go in. The Palace has waaay to many rooms, and after you saw 3 it will look the same – unless you are really into these things.

The Park around the Pena Palace is also massive, according to pictures on Google, it’s amazing. By the time we finished in the Palace we had to decide where to, literally, run next, since our last hoponhopoff bus was about to due soon – at 5pm… nonsense again, but whateva. I told my friend we can go and see whatever she wants next, but let’s save some time for the only thing I really want to see, which is the Ocean. She decided let’s go to the nearest thing to see called  Castelo dos Mouros which is a ruin of a castle. And on our way down from the hill we were planning to quickly check Palacio Nacional Sintra, and carry on with the bus all the way to the oceanside and coming back with the last bus. Sounded like a plan, so we quickly went to the nearest hoponhopoff stop and we were waiting. And waiting. And fucking waiting.

…the only thing I really want to see, is the Ocean…

Eventually, a *not in service* bus arrived we were like what the actual fuck? The driver said his route includes nothing, just to take us down from the hill and goodbye. He said the last bus to all the stops we still want to see is gone already. I was about to cry I mean for real. Probably the driver sensed our huge disappointment and pain so…

He offered to take us everywhere we wanted to go BAAAMMM …

I mean… Humanity or what? He said we can’t hang around for hours but we can stop everywhere for like 15 minutes – which is obviously better than 0 minutes. Good people are really out there! He showed us the castle ruins, took us around in the old town to see the Palace, and drove all the way to the Coast.
He stopped at Praia Grande:

This is a ‘grande’ beach with gold sand and huge waves which makes it a very popular surfing spot and has become a regular host of different events. And you can find dinosaur fossils – 11 footsteps –  on the south side of the cliff.
– as usual, before you open this video, mute your device cuz I – still –  wasn’t a vlogger and it was very windy –

After this view, I thought I’m done, thank you so much, there’s no way to top that. Well, I was so wrong.

…we reached the end of the world…

When we arrived to the next stop, we found out we reached the end of the world. – Well, at least people in the 14th century thought that Cabo de Roca  is the end. Even though it is ‘just’ the westernmost point of Europe. The view from more than 100 meter high is simply spectacular. No words to describe it really.

”Here…where the land ends and the sea begins” – Camões

What else can I say? …  Nothing. No need for more after this last picture I think…
Portugal is an amazing country with the most amazing beaches. One day I will definitely go back for like a month or so and just surf and chase the sun all the way through the coast….

… Jó éjszakát, szevasztok!

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