18 hours in Chicago

On our final morning in Lisbon, we woke up early, packed our bags, and headed out before the sun was up to find a pastelaria that was open. We found one in the Graça neighborhood, though I forgot to take note of the name!

After a delicious breakfast, we headed back to the apartment. Our friends actually returned from their trip that morning and we were able to see them for a half hour before we had to head to the airport  ourselves.



When I first booked our flights to Lisbon, we had a two hour layover in Chicago on the way back. A few months later, I received an update from Orbitz that the final leg of our flight from Chicago had been canceled. We were given two options: Fly home the next day or cancel the entire trip. I had a very aggravating hour-long phone call with Orbitz, much of which was spent on hold while they tried to contact Aer Lingus through whom the "package" of flights had been booked. Aer Lingus refused to let us book another flight with another airline that day. Since we were only a month and a half away from the trip, we decided just to keep the flights and have a "day" in Chicago.

We booked a night at a new boutique hotel, Staypineapple, located in an historic former bank building located on the Loop. It turned out to be a great hotel, and I really liked that the kept the charming details of the former bank.

We arrived in Chicago at 6:30pm and were dead tired, but also very hungry by the time we reached the hotel. Too tired to go anywhere, we opted to eat at the restaurant on the ground floor, the Atwood. I had the delicious Atwood Melt with pork rillette, house applebutter, cheddar cheese, and chives. And then we went back to the room and crashed.

The next day we only had until around 11:00AM before we had to set off for the airport. So we got up early and headed out for breakfast. A few years ago I visited Chicago for a conference and discovered the fast-healthy chain restaurant Freshii that I really enjoyed. There was one a few blocks away from the hotel so we went there for egg tortilla wraps. Yum!

With full stomachs, we headed toward Millennium Park. When I was in Chicago three years prior, I was so busy with the conference that I didn't have much time to explore and so I had never seen the Cloud Gate sculpture, often called the Millennium Bean. Since few touristy places were open yet, it seemed like the perfect thing to do with our short time in Chicago. When the change in our flights was first made, I was terrified of having a layover in Chicago in January. What would the weather be like? Would we need to pack a much warmer outfit than we were going to need in Lisbon? In the end, we were incredibly lucky. It was the perfect weather- 32° F and a dusting of few-day-old snow around the corners, but no active snow or rain. It was lovely!

We warmed up with coffee at Pret a Manger and then caught the L to the airport. We made it out of Chicago without any weather delays and happily headed home.

Sintra

On our final day in Lisbon, we took a side-trip to Sintra, located northwest of Lisbon and about 40 minutes away by train. Sintra served as the summer getaway for Portugal's royalty. With its cool, breezy hilltops, I can imagine that Sintra would be a nice escape from the Lisbon heat.

Our plan was to set off somewhat early since we had to walk to the metro, take the metro to the train station, and then take the train to Sintra, and we wanted to have a good portion of the day to explore without having to return too late in the day. So, at about 7:30AM, we went to the Pastelaria around the corner from our apartment, expecting to get a quick breakfast before setting off. But they were closed. At the time, I assumed they were closed for the day since it was Monday and that is a common day for restaurants to be closed. However, I have since decided that it was probably just too early, as almost all Pastelarias we have encountered seem to open at 8:00AM.

We decided just to set off for the metro since we weren't super hungry and we had seen a Starbucks at the train station a few days prior. (As I mentioned briefly in my post about reducing waste while traveling, this is one of the places where we failed. We should have gone back to the apartment and taken our reusable cups with us, but we didn't.) We really felt like tourists going to a Starbucks while abroad, but, alas, we knew it would be a reliable option for coffee and breakfast on the go. It was funny to see that even Starbucks carries pastéis de nata in Lisbon! (Sorry for the terrible pastry case photo. We did not actually buy any this time.)

With our breakfast purchased, we left Starbucks and took the escalator up to the train station. Looking at the departures board, we discovered that a train was leaving for Sintra in four minutes. We were so glad that we had decided to top up our Viva Viagem transit cards the evening before. We didn't have to waste any time purchasing tickets or adding money; we just swiped our cards and were on the train with two minutes to spare. We couldn't have timed it more perfectly if we'd tried! Though, if we had arrived earlier, we might have gotten seats. As it was, we had to wait for a few stops before there were two seats available together.

Arriving in Sintra was very overwhelming. It is pretty clear that almost everyone getting off the train is a tourist there on a day trip. So, immediately upon exiting the station, we were mobbed by people trying to sell tours, private guides, and tuk tuk rides. This made it impossible to think or to figure out our game plan since we hadn't decided where we wanted to go first or how to get there. I was so frustrated that I just started walking. We had to get ourselves lost away from the crowd before we could pause to discuss our options. We finally settled on walking to the National Palace, which was closest to the train station. We found Rick Steves's directions to be confusing (I'm still certain they are wrong, as making a left turn would send us in the opposite direction as indicated on his map and Apple Maps), so we  decided to follow GPS. I'm not sure this was entirely better. It took us down and then back up a steep hill. We got to see a bit of the cute town, but we were really sweating by the time we made it to the palace and had to peel off all the layers of clothes we were wearing. (We later discovered that there was another road with no hills that we could have taken...)

 

After pausing outside to cool down and finally eat our breakfast, we entered the National Palace. This is the oldest surviving royal palace in Portugal. It housed royalty until 1910 and is still used for official receptions today. The palace was originally built in Moorish times, but most of what is seen today was built by King João I in the 15th-century.

I particularly enjoyed the Bedchamber of King Sebastian for its tiled walls topped with corn cobs, a reminder of the "discovery" of the Americas. These tiles are considered to be the first of the now-famous Portuguese tiles, and were installed during the time of Manuel I, King Sebastian's great-grandfather. The story of King Sebastian is an interesting one as well. In 1578, at age 24, he chased the Moors out of Europe and followed them into Africa where he disappeared. Some "Sebastianists" awaited his return into the 19th century. King Sebastian had not married, and so his great uncle Henrique, as the only heir, became king. King Henrique only ruled for two years before dying himself. Again, the only heir was a great uncle, this time King Henrique's great uncle, King Philip II of Spain, and this led to 60 years of Spanish rule over Portugal.

We continued our circular tour through the palace and entered into Blazons Hall, or the Coat of Arms  Room. This is an impressive room. The lower walls are entirely covered in blue tiles and the room is capped by a dazzling golden dome. The dome is filled with the coats of arms of Portugal's nobility. In the very center is the king's coat of arms. Below that are the coats of arms of his children. A row of stags separates the royal family from the Portuguese noble families, whose coats of arms fill the lower rows. All but one family, that is. The Távora family had conspired to assassinate the king. The entire family was executed and they were given a blank niche in the dome. Below these coats of arms, a Latin phrase encircles the room reading, "Honoring all the noble families who've been loyal to the king." Certainly seems like a reminder to the rest of the noble families to stay in line...

We progressed along the self-guided tour, finally making it to the kitchen, which was the room we were most interested to see. The palace has these two weird conical spires (one of which can be seen in the photo above) that dominate the profile of the palace, and indeed the town, and which I had never seen in other European architecture. These were part of the ingenious ventilation system of the kitchen. The cones are actually huge chimneys. Any smoke coming from cooking in the large kitchen was funneled up into these cones and out of the building. The rest of the kitchen also sported the latest in cooking technology. The chef could roast a whole cow on the spit in the center. There was also a large dish warmer to keep plates of food warm and running water.

Since we hadn't figured out our plan beyond visiting the National Palace due to the train station mob, we now had to decide what to see next. I consulted my Rick Steves book, only to discover that it would be a one-hour hike uphill to the next closest site. Lisbon may be known for being hilly, but it has nothing on the mountain-sized "hills" of Sintra. Thankfully, the city also has a bus that runs in a one-way loop to all the major sites. (This is partly why we were so stressed out by the mob at the train station. There is a bus station right outside the train station, but I was pretty sure it was going the wrong direction from where we wanted to go first. I ended up being right, but it was so hectic we couldn't even pause to look at the bus map or our guidebook without being accosted.) We found the bus stop outside the National Palace, paid way too much for a day pass so that we could ride it the entire way around the loop after our site visits, and set off for Pena Palace.

Even though the bus has taken you far up winding hills, when you arrive at the Palace gate you are still a very steep hill away from the Palace. They conveniently offer a shuttle for €3 apiece. When another tourist scoffed at the exorbitant price, the shuttle driver just laughed and said "It's all up hill." There was no way we were walking up that hill. Please take our money, shuttle driver.

Pena Palace is quite fantastical. Built in the 19th century on a hill high above Sintra, it is a multitude of brightly hued colors and a mishmash of Gothic, Renaissance, Moorish, and Manueline features piled on top of each other. 

After wandering through the Palace, we decided to have lunch. Pena Palace has both a cafe and a sit-down restaurant, and we opted for the latter. It was actually pretty good for an attraction restaurant. I had cod and potatoes in gravy and, of course, a pastel de nata.

 

We opted not to visit the third main attraction in Sintra, the ruins of a Moorish Castle, since we were running low on time and it would have involved a lot of hiking up hills. But we were glad to be able to see it from one of the balconies at Pena Palace.

It was now mid-afternoon and we decided it was time to head back to Lisbon. We took the shuttle back down from Pena Palace and caught the Sintra bus to the train station. The trip downhill on the bus convinced us that we might actually be riding the Knight Bus with the way it squeezed through the narrowest of passageways between ancient brick walls and 19th century buildings. We made it to the train station alive only to discover that there were no trains going to Rossio station, were we had departed from that morning. I asked the ticket person about it, and he confirmed that we were indeed reading the departures board correctly. He recommended that we take the train to Oriente, which was departing momentarily. I knew there was a metro stop at that station, so we made the snap decision to take that train and rushed through the ticket turnstiles. The train doors shut right as we were about to board. Momentary panic ensued, but, thankfully, the doors still opened when the button was pushed and we were able to board. After an uneventful train ride and easy metro ride back to Alfama, we headed back to our apartment.

Since we were leaving Lisbon in the morning and still needed to pack, we decided to have dinner somewhere nearby. On the recommendation of our friends, we decided to have dinner at Alfama Celler, just a few streets away. It is a cute, hole-in-the-wall little restaurant with delicious food. In fact, I had the lamb stew and it was probably the best thing we ate on the whole trip! A perfect way to wrap up our visit to Lisbon. 

Belém

On our second day in Lisbon, we decided to visit the Belém district west of downtown Lisbon. After a bit too much Ginjinha and a very fun evening the night before, we decided to sleep in a bit and got a latter start, grabbing pastéis de nata to-go from the Pastelaria around the corner (and up a flight of stairs) from our apartment. We then decided to take the San Francisco-esque trolley that stopped a little further up the street into downtown Lisbon, since we had not ridden it yet. The trolley was just as busy and jam-packed full of people as its San Francisco counterparts, and not a particularly enjoyable mode of transportation down steep and narrow lanes. But, hey, when in Rome, right?

We finally made it to the stop just outside of Praça do Comércio and managed to squeeze ourselves out of the trolley and onto the street. Once in the Square, we located the stop for trolley line #15E that would take us to Belém. We chose this option based on Rick Steve's suggestion that it was more scenic, if slower, than the coastal train running mostly parallel to it. Well, so did every other tourist, apparently. This trolley, though bigger and more modern than the previous one was even more packed with people. To top it off, both trolleys cost almost double the price of the metro and coastal trains. I had not planned for this the evening before when I loaded €5 on to each of our Viva Viagem transit cards, thinking that would get us to Belém and back. Nope. The #15E cost €3 itself! We did not have that left after the €2.25 trolley ride down the hill, so I had to scrounge together €6 in cash and we had to purchase tickets on the trolley, rather than swiping our cards. Of course, so did every other tourist who hadn't planned ahead, like I thought I had. It took a good three or four stops on the trolley before I could squeeze my way back to the middle of the trolley to the ticket machine (why was it not in the front like I'd expected?!) and purchase tickets. And then another three stops before I waded my way back to where Russ was standing. I guess the upside was that we were halfway to Belém by that point.

After exiting the trolley in Belém, the first order of business was to go straight to Casa Pastéis de Belém- the birthplace of the pastel de nata custard tart. This café began making the pastéis de nata, or pastéis de Belém as they are known here, in 1837, after acquiring the recipe from the monks at the nearby Monastery of Jerónimos. Being the birthplace of this delicious treat, the place is mobbed by people (tourists) even at lunchtime, which is when we finally arrived. We had been forewarned by our friends, and Rick Steves, that the line to order at the counter gets particularly long. And they were right. So we opted to go inside and try for a table. Upon entering, we noticed the front seating area looked very tiny, and was completely full. It didn't look like there was anywhere further to go, except for the kitchens, and possibly the bathrooms. But I had seen a sign indicating a maximum occupancy of 400 people, so I figured there had to be more tables somewhere. There was no way the small rooms we had seen would hold 400 people! We persevered; heading into the bowels of the building, past the kitchens and the bathrooms, until we found a large dining room with a line of its own and a bouncer letting groups in one at a time as tables became available. Thankfully, the line moved fairly quickly and within 15-20 minutes we has a table and ordered our pastéis de nata and café com leite. And, no, I am not ashamed that we had pastéis de nata for breakfast and lunch... But these were definitely not the best pastéis de nata that we had. In fact, while still good, they were at the bottom of the list of all the places we tried. I think that is often typical of places like this, though. They become famous for being the original, but then others tweak and improve recipes and end up surpassing the original in quality, which clings to its roots. Overall, I'm glad we tried it though!

Next up was the Monastery of Jerónimos across the street. This large and exquisite monastery was built by King Manuel I as thanks for the discoveries Portuguese explorers had made, and was partially financed by a tax on spices imported from India. The location of the monastery was chosen because it was near to the small chapel that sailors would pray at before embarking on their journeys. The style of architecture is Manueline, an ornate, decorative style unique to Portugal, blending late Gothic and Moorish features, as well as other cultural influences stemming from the Age of Discovery.

We opted not to purchase the joint ticket with the archeological museum housed in the same building, as it was already getting later in the day and we had other sites to see. We had expected to purchase a joint ticket for the Monastery and the Tower of Belém, but they do not sell it at the Monastery, only at the Tower. Something that was not mentioned in Rick Steves guidebook...

 Across the street from the Monastery, we found a lovely garden, the Jardim da Praça do Império, and took a quick rest (our feet were still sore from all the walking the day before!) before setting off to our next two sites

Slightly rested, we set off toward the bank of the Rio Tejo and the Monument to the Discoveries. The monument was originally created for the World's Fair in 1940, and was re-erected in this site in 1960 to honor the 500th anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator. The monument takes the shape of a Portuguese caravel ship, which made voyages across the ocean possible. On the very front of the monument is Prince Henry the Navigator holding a model of the caravel and a map. He is followed behind on one side by King Manuel I, who financed these voyages, and poets and artists who glorified them. On the other side stands Vasco da Gama, Magellan, and Pedro Cabral, along with monks and crusaders who Christianized foreign lands. Of course, as we view this monument and contemplate all the splendor that the "Age of Discovery" brought to Portugal, we must also remember that these foreign lands were not "discovered." People were already living there, and Western involvement and colonization had lasting negative impacts on these peoples. We viewed the monument from the outside, but opted not to pay to go inside.

No, we didn't end up in San Francisco! That is the 25th of April Bridge, which spans the Rio Tejo and was built by the same company as the Golden Gate Bridge. It is the deepest bridge in the world, with the foundations sunk 260 feet into the riverbed. The bridge, built in 1966, was originally named for the dictator Salazar, but was renamed for the date of the 1974 revolution.

Continuing along the riverfront, we made our way to the Tower of Belém. This tower was the last thing that sailors saw as they departed Portugal and the first thing they saw upon their return. When it was built, the tower was actually mid-river and the Rio Tejo reached almost to the Monastery of Jerónimos. At the center of the river, the tower served as a customs house, as well as a place to check incoming ships for disease before entering Portugal. We viewed the tower from the outside, but opted not to go inside, both because we had not been able to purchase the combo ticket at the monastery (mentioned above) and because we were getting quite hungry.

We headed back toward the Monastery, but this time opted to take the coastal train instead of the infuriating trolley from the morning's journey. Oh. My. Goodness. Why didn't we take this before?! It was faster, half the cost, more comfortable, and, in my opinion, way more scenic. I don't know what Rick Steves was thinking...

We took the train all the way to the end of the line at the Cais do Sodré station on the western edge of Lisbon center. After exiting the station, we crossed the street to the Mercado da Ribeira, also known as Time Out Market. The building houses a market and a food court full of trendy food stalls curated by Time Out magazine. The back wall of the food court is full of stalls for Lisbon's top chefs. We opted for one of these stalls run by Henrique Sá Pessoa, and both ended up ordering the same delicious pork sandwich.

Thoroughly exhausted and stuffed we headed back to our apartment for a good night's sleep before our next day of adventures.