Travel Diary // Lisbon County

Belém

Belém is Portuguese for Bethlehem and this is THE PLACE for Pasteis de Belém. I know you can get Pasteis de Nata about everywhere but Pasteis de Belèm are the one and only originals and people are waiting in line to get some of the delicious pastries (don’t worry, they are so freaking fast and I only waited about 5-10 minutes to get mine!)

To get there, take the train from Cais do Sodro to Belèm. It’s cheap and only takes 5 minutes.

There are also lots of cool museums in Belém. I personally loved the Museu Coleção Berardo (modern & contemporary art), which we visited on a rather grey and cloudy day.

Cascais

We took the same train we did to go to Belèm and rode to the final destination Cascais. The sun was pretty strong that day and the cool narrow streets of this coastal town were very inviting. Strolling around for about an hour we found lots of hidden street art and cute sideways. This town is such a gem! To make the day perfect, we relaxed at the beach and had amazing late lunch at one of the restaurants nearby.

Praia do Guincho

On our 5^th day we rented a scooter from Alegria Ride (Riu is just the nicest guy J) and drove along the coast to Cascais and on to Praia do Guincho. The beach there is beautiful, especially with the wooden bridge which leads above the sand dunes to the windy beach. After a quick stroll we drove on to Coba da Roca.

 

Cabo da Roca & Praia da Ursa

The streets were narrow and steep but we made it to Cabo da Roca eventually. At one point we wished we would have gone for the faster scooter but it wouldn’t have been the same. We liked our little adventurous ride ;) Cabo da Roca is the western point of the mainland Portugal’s and Europe! After driving back for about 500 meters we parked our scooter on a tiny “parking lot” and followed Nisi’s direction to get to Praia da Ursa, a beautiful beach with rocks in the sea.

Sintra

Since we were staying in Lisbon for quite a few days we decided to also check out Sintra, a small city about 25km outside of Lisbon. Sintra is a historic place with castles and charming streets. It took us a little longer to get back to Lisbon since we couldn’t take the highway and we probably got lost three times but we had a fun journey anyway.

 

Shopping

Of course we couldn’t leave without visiting a shopping mall ;)

I recommend Centro Colombo. Basically you don’t only get tons of stores but it is also nice to look at. There are bridges and monuments inside the building and it’s simply huge! I’m pretty sure there’s something for everyone.

I hope you liked this little Lisbon diary and stay tuned for some NYC blog posts (and hopefully video) in June!