Portugal

The train from Madrid was a overnight one, so we could get some sleep on it, which was nice. On reaching Lisbon, we followed the shots I had taken from Google maps to the closest hostel, which was in the Alfama area (the old town area of Lisbon). The hostel was really nice, I mean really nice. It was a very small hostel, which was a little tough to find, but had a nice outdoor sitting area, a patio on the roof and as soon as we got there, we got breakfast, in which they had pancakes! Cinnamon pancakes in fact! Out of politeness, I had only two of those (along with lots of other stuff obviously) and then we hit the town for some sightseeing.

Lisbon isn’t really a typical tourist destination. As in you won’t find anything spectacular there, but the city is really nice. It’s been built over several hills and has very nice architecture. We went to the castle and the cathedral etc. etc. frankly apart from the view from the castle, there was nothing that was exceptionally good to be honest. It was all very nice, but not brilliant. We decided to walk to the town of Belem, which was close to Lisbon. It’s not very far, but the weather was quite bad and we could have either taken the train (which was cheaper) or the tram. The train is relatively cheaper, but we thought we would walk it, so we went ahead and we had almost reached Belem (about 2/3^rds way) when it got too much for us. We had to take the tram and as it turns out the distance doesn’t matter when u buy the ticket. So we paid almost 6 Euros to cover very little distance.

Belem basically has the tower of Belem and a ship shaped monument to the discoverers who made Portugal rule so many countries. Once again, although both are quite nice, neither is spectacular to be honest. Also, the timings for entering the tower are till 5:30 pm, but we got there at 5 and they had already closed it. So we went to eat some local delicacies. The most famous shop there is Pasteis de Belem. It’s also the name of the main dish there, which is basically a custard type thing in a tart type setting. The shop is HUGE. I mean you enter from one room into another, into a third and then a fourth and then there is a massive kitchen which shows the pastry being made. The pasteis de Belem were being made by the hundreds and being ordered at the same rate. Everyone would order 3-4 and they would order nothing else. They were pretty good to be honest. I think this was the main thing you had to check out if you did come to Lisbon. Anyways, we took the tram back, since there was supposed to

be a traditional Portuguese dinner at the hostel and we wanted to be there on time. Unfortunately, the cook had fallen sick and there was no such dinner. We just had cookies and went to sleep.

The next morning, we had another lavish breakfast and took the train to Porto. The hostel this time was practically behind the station, just about 100m from it. What’s more,  it was owned by an Indian (Gujju of course)! But in terms of infrastructure and everything, it was the best hostel we had stayed in. Once again, we headed out for some sightseeing and once again we were stopped in our tracks by the rain. We still managed to do a little bit, the old town, the river and the church. Lisbon had a very Indian feel to it. The river was not blue like most European cities, it was greenish brown. The hills had moss all over them and the houses weren’t all standardized to look nice and similar, everyone made whatever they wanted. So we just went back to the hostel to chill due to the rain.

In the night, we had the local speciality, Francesinha, which is a 3 layered sandwich with 5 types of meat in it, two fried eggs (one on top and one at the bottom), then wrapped around completely in cheese and served in a sauce which is made of beer. It’s basically a heart attack in a bowl, but its pretty good. Frankly I’m not a fan of the sauce, but the rest of it is pretty awesome. It’s another thing that reminded me of India. I mean it’s as Punjabi as a sandwich can get isn’t it? You can practically hear the Sardar going “hor chicken paa de” “ik kaam kar, ande vi daal de” “ chal cheese vi” “beer kyon nahi beer vi”. 

The next morning, we went for a wine tour. Porto is basically famous for Port wine, this is where it all comes from, not just where it started, it’s all still here. Although I’m not a fan of wine, its something we had to do. We took one of the lesser known smaller tours, because all the big ones were closed for a 1.5 hour lunch! No wonder the economy is in shambles. In any case, the tour was like 30-40 mins and was actually pretty good. shockingly we did learn quite a bit (although for a short while). I think that the most important thing was that Port wine isn’t just fermented grapes, its actually partially fermented grapes with alcohol, so it’s sweeter than regular wine. So when we did the wine tasting at the end of the tour, I actually liked the wine (generally I don’t like it at all). Bharat also liked it. Both of us liked it so much, that we bought a vintage port wine for Dad. This was actually an award winning wine (yeah they have awards for wine as well). It was the best vintage port wine for the vintage year of 2003. It’s not a very old vintage, but it was the best in the world for a vintage year, which is pretty important, apparently.

We walked around a bit more after the wine tour. We went to have some more Francesinha and also visit the town centre. There is also a library, where J.K. Rowling wrote some of the Harry Potter books and in fact once of the sets (Diagon Alley) in the second movie was modelled on that library. Once again, its has a very nice small town feel and the most interesting part was the mix of people over there. Basically people from all the Portuguese colonies from all over the world had come to live in Porto and Lisbon. This gave it a very different atmosphere. All in all, I think Portugal is a very nice destination for someone who is just looking to chill. Not really for the typical tourist. We didn’t do much in the 3 days there, but we still enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.