Lisbon in Portugal was the last stop of my Mediterranean Christmas cruise. And in case you're wondering, this was a cruise from a few years ago, not in recent weeks, otherwise it could have turned out quite disastrous! This is the first time I've been to Lisbon, so it's great that I can finally add another country to my Steem Worldmap map to track my travels around the world.
We arrived in Lisbon on 24th December, and I could feel the city wasn't as busy as one would expect of a capital. This was probably due to the holiday preparations, and people already left the capital to return home for the festival.
NUMBER 12 TRAM
Being a one day tourist in town and not having done much homework in advance, we somehow managed to end up around Praça_da_Figueira and The Rossio. This area is (now I know) the busiest area around Lisbon downtown. I can't remember if we followed other people off the cruise ship over here, or maybe the cruise ship provided us with some basic information. Either way, this turned out to be the perfect place to start our day in Lisbon.
I remember the first thing we did was a tram ride. The number 12 tram is part of the local public network, but nowadays, I think it is very popular with tourists as the ride only takes 20 minutes. It's a 4km circular route, going uphill along some narrow streets and with lots of interesting building on the way. In fact, after we did the tram ride, we walked the same route on foot again to explore the areas, which I now know is called Baixa and Alfama.
ELEVADOR DE SANTA JUSTA
The Santa Justa Lift is something that I stumbled across after walking around the Baixa and Alfama districts. I noticed this tower with a heavy top - that's the best way I can describe it. It wasn't a building as it had open windows, and one side had a link to another building. With a little bit of difficulty, I managed to find an entrance that took me to the top level. From here, (if I remember correctly) there was a link to a building rooftop with panoramic views of the city. Boy! Was it good!!!
STREET LEVEL BUILDINGS
The rest of the day was spent wandering aimlessly around the city. In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to explore a city otherwise you'll just be following the rest of the crowd to the same places. That being said, there really wasn't many other people around due to the upcoming holiday. It felt kind of weird, walking around one of the major capital cities in Europe but there not being that many people around. I wonder if that's most places affected by the Wuhan virus looks like nowadays?
FOOD IN LISBON
Despite the lack of people around due to Christmas, I did manage to find some other gems in Lisbon. Food never fails me!!
Confeitaria Nacional was founded in 1829 and is said to be the oldest patisserie in Lisbon. I dropped in for coffee after lunch (see below) and to sample their mouth-watering pastries, as you do when you come across such a famous shop.
Pastéis de nata is better known as Portuguese tarts in English. They date back to the 18th century when monks in Lisbon started to make them. I've had them before as they are very popular in Macau, which is a former Portuguese colony and near Hong Kong. Although I had just had coffee and pastries at Confeitaria Nacional, there was no way I was going to pass on authentic Portuguese tarts from Lisbon!
Now to lunch. When I was on the no. 12 tram ride, we passed by a rather shabby looking shop. Hubby's eyes immediately lit up when he saw the window display. That's one of the reasons we did a walk of the tram route afterwards.
Roast suckling pig is a delicacy in Cantonese cuisine. The tenderness of the meat and crispy skin is something that you won't ever forget once you've tried it. Hubby (and me as well actually) was so pleased to see this shop in Lisbon selling roast suckling pig. We went in after our tram ride, and it was packed with people. It seems that nearly all of the customers had pre-ordered their food.
As we were waiting patiently to be served, the little piglets got chopped up one by one. We were wondering if there would be any left for us walk in tourists. The guy behind the counter hesitated for a while when we placed our order. He looked around his stock with a slightly worried look, and then pulled a piece from the window and started chopping away. Yah!!!!
We took our gem find, and headed over to the Praça do Comércio, a public square by the waterfront. Again, there was hardly anyone around. We sat outside munching away on the roast suckling pork. Boy, this must rank as my best ever Christmas eve lunch. What a great way to round off the last day on my Med Xmas cruise!
You can checkout all my travel post on the Steem WorldMap here or click on the map below
Wow, it's so nice to see these places again. I haven't been there yet but my cousin has been to Lisbon and I know the place from her photos. There's so much to see, I'm glad I can see these photos and read about your journey.
Thank you for showing us the world! 😊
Seems like we managed to get to the tourists hot spots in the end, but I'm sure we only just scratched the surface during the day. Another reason to go back some time.
!engage 50
Well said, I guess there's never enough time to visit every, isn't it?!
50 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @erikah you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
What a lovely post, the city really looks beautiful, I love the photo with the tram in it. That top-heavy building looks very interesting, and now your food photos made me very hungry!!
Thanks for sharing.
That tram photo is also my favourite, I think I was very lucky to capture the front and the bendy section.
!engage 30
30 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @rynow you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
Pastéis de nata, delicious!
They were very good in deed, even after lunch and coffee and desserts!
!engage 30
30 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @gemamedina you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
The pastry makes my mouth water. It literally was the only type of food we were consuming in Portugal. Would love to visit Lisbon one day, especially that strange building. Even though it is high, the view is to die for!
Sweets are my favourite, I always seek them out when I travel! That elevator is definitely worth going to, I can imagine it would look so beautiful under your lenses!
!engage 30
30 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @rimicane you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
Never been to this before, such a nice architectural place to explore...
Lisbon has some great architecture, it would be straight up your steet given your background!
!engage 30
30 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @priyanarc you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
Only one selfie? 😩 乳豬睇落好正🤤
Posted using Partiko Android
乳豬真係好正㗎！😊
!engage 30
30 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @davidke20 you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
Daily Travel Digest #791.
Become part of the Haveyoubeenhere community:
Thanks guys!!!
!engage 30
30 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @steemitworldmap you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
I love this city! Best wishes from Germany
Hopefully I will go back another time, one day is too little to appreciate a capital city. Thank you Germany! 😂
!engage 30
30 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @nils1990 you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
Thank you for a lovely post. I wish I could travel the world someday. Best wishes and stay safe.
Thank you for your comment, hopefully you can start your travels one day. In the meanwhile, if you travel around in you home country, you can share your travels with everyone on the Steem World map. I'm a curator there and we always welcome authors to pin their travel posts on the Map like I have.
!engage 30
30 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @wtrmrk you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
Great shots!
Thanks
!engage 15
15 ENGAGEView and trade the tokens on Steem Engine. @sofathana you have received from @livinguktaiwan!
Enjoy a $trendotoken bonus from MAPX!
Thanks for being a member of MAPX. Please also take a look at @MAPXV and @MAXUV as MAPX tokens are almost sold out.
3.99774488 TRDO2.66516325 TRDO curation in 3 Days from Post Created Date!Congratulations @map10k, you successfuly trended the post shared by @livinguktaiwan! @livinguktaiwan will receive & @map10k will get
"Call TRDO, Your Comment Worth Something!"
To view or trade TRDO go to steem-engine.com
Join TRDO Discord Channel or Join TRDO Web Site
$trendotoken and !trendovoter .
Also, please check out my Fourth Nonsense Writing Contest.
Thanks!Hi @livinguktaiwan, a modest tip of appreciation:
Sorry, @rycharde you’ve reach daily limit of summon the trendo curation bot!
Support @trendotoken projects by delegating : 100SP , 200SP , 500SP , 1000SP , 2000SP
Congratulations, Your Post Has Been Added To The Steemit Worldmap!
Author link: http://steemitworldmap.com?author=livinguktaiwanPost link: http://steemitworldmap.com?post=finding-gems-on-the-last-stop-of-my-cruise-in-lisbon-portugal
Want to have your post on the map too?
Here's my posh link
Hi @livinguktaiwan!
Your UA account score is currently 4.969 which ranks you at #761 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 22 places in the last three days (old rank 783).Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 57 contributions, your post is ranked at #5.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
3.99774488 TRDO from below listed TRENDO callers:
Congratulations @livinguktaiwan, your post successfully recieved
To view or trade TRDO go to steem-engine.com
Join TRDO Discord Channel or Join TRDO Web Site