Lost in Portugal: Sights around Lisboa

So, I neglected to actually write more posts while I was in Lisbon, therefore I don't really have a place to put these as my earlier posts were rather random and too specific, but I have to say that I loved Lisbon as a city, it is quite beautiful with some wonderful architecture that really reflects the different cultural groups that have lived in and shaped the city.

Even though most of the weekend was cool, rainy and grey, I adored wandering through the steep, narrow city streets. In fact, the cool, rainy weather combined with the replica Golden Gate Bridge over the harbor and the steep, narrow streets climbing up the hillside just made Lisbon feel that much more like San Francisco. Although San Fran feels more upscale in many ways.

We saw quite a bit of the city and with the less than favorable weather even made it to the Lisboa Oceanario which has a phenomenal saltwater tank as its centerpiece, including perhaps the coolest fish ever, the Mola Mola, or Ocean Sunfish, a gigantic saltwater fish that can grow up to 11ft long and enjoys drifting on its side while the currents carry it through the ocean. Plus a fair number of sharks and barracudas floating around inside.

We hit most of the big sites: St. Jorge's Castle, Belém where we saw the Belém Tower and Jerónimos Monastery (both UNESCO World Heritage sites), the Chiado shopping district (although this time I refrained from tragging Nick through another shopping marathon), the Bairro Alto, and even the Jardim Botanico, which was slightly disappointing after the immensity of Berlin's Tiergarten. That combined with all the walking around the city gave us a pretty good sense of things although I can definitely see coming back for a longer stay. Plus perhaps a bit more time on the coast . . . gotta work on my timing on the waves after all.