Portugal and Southern Spain
We arrived in Lisbon and were surprised at how busy the airport was. We had to wait in line to get a taxi, but the airport wasn't far from downtown, so it was a quick ride to our hotel, the Doubletree Hilton. The Doubletree was very nice, but not in a convenient location to the historic city center, which is about 1.5 miles away. We would walk each way because we always enjoy walking to explore a city. We spent three days in Lisbon, including Christmas day, so not much was open that day. One day we took the train to Sintra which we loved!
Our impressions of Lisbon:
A very hilly city! If you are going, be prepared to do a lot of walking up and down hills
There is a lot of graffiti everywhere, including the historic area, which was really disappointing. The city would have been very beautiful if it hadn't been scarred with all the graffiti.
They eat very late, some restaurants don't open until 7:30/8pm. We are early dinner eaters; luckily we found some restaurants that were open. We were usually the only ones in the restaurant!
Must see: Sao Jorge Castle. Lisbon is a city to walk and explore. There are just a few museums and sights, but Sao Jorge Castle is a must do, if nothing else for the views. Even though it is clearly visible, the streets are winding and not many signs to the entrance. The best way to find it is follow all the taxis that are taking people to the top.
Sintra (World Heritage Site) was the highlight of our time in Lisbon. We took the train from Rossio Station to Sintra (which is the last stop). In Rick Steves guidebook he stated that it was really easy to purchase train tickets from the automated machines, but we found it quite confusing (you need to know what zone you are going to, which we couldn't figure out), so we ended up going to the ticket window. Sintra has the National Palace, as well as two castles to see, both at the top of a very steep hill. We planned on seeing the 2 castles as the National Palace was closed the day we were there. I had originally thought we would walk up to the castles, but when we arrived it was quite apparent that wan't going to happen, as it is a long and steep climb. There are busses that will take you to the top as well as taxis, which is what we decided to do. It was a good thing we did because we discovered that since it was the day before Christmas both the castles were closing at 2pm. Rick Steves raved about the Pena Palace, but it felt like Disney Land, we much preferred the Moorish Castle which felt like a castle in the sky.
