Matteo W: Minha primer e meia semana em Lisboa – a recap of week one + 1/2

While I’ve already written about my first day here in Portugal, I also decided to write a blog dedicated to my first week (or rather first week and a half by the time I’ve actually finished writing it) here as well, because it usually is one of the most eventful time-periods during the Erasmus stay. Obviously our first few days were dedicated to covering the basics. We bought ourselves the tickets for the metropolitan area of Lisbon, we got ample supplies and in general just adjusted to the city, but much rather also the climate. As I’ve already written in my first blog there was a heat wave for the first few days and although the weather has since grown more moderate, it was really exhausting in the beginning.

After settling in we also explored the city quite a bit. Obviously we went to the beach a few times, mainly in Cascais and Caxias, the latter of which, while not being quite as picturesque, is situated closer to Lisbon.

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We also visited the “Museu Nacional do Azulejo” which can roughly be translated as “National Tile Museum”. Lisbon and Andalusia, a region of Spain, are both really famous for these artisan tiles. If you cannot imagine anything under “artisan tiles”, I’ve included some pictures below. In the museum you can find some really interesting pieces such as a panorama depicting Lisbon pre the devastating 1755 earthquake. If you want you could also learn about how these azulejos are made traditionally.

I can only recommend paying this museum a visit, as it is one of the most famous attractions of the city. It realistically takes an hour or an hour and a half to see the entirety.

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Generally Lisbon is surrounded by some really marvellous towns. I’ve already mentioned Cascais, but there is another one to the north, which is arguably even more magical: Sintra. The trip there takes about 50 minutes by train, but the journey is included in our ticket so it was well worth it. When we went there the first time all the sights had already closed for the day, which was really surprising considering it was only shortly after 6 p.m. in a tourist town. So we visited again the next day, for a lack of better things to do. We hiked up the mountain through a park to get to the Moorish castle, from where you are supposed to have great views on the surround area. While the hike itself was quite scenic, upon our arrival at the top, the castle had already closed.

So I guess we’ll just need to go another time!