Hi there,
As we always go somewhere different for my birthday and we didn’t want to have to be in the chaos of an airport in summer, we decided to go by bus to Lisbon since we had to revisit this city.
We went from June 23 to 26 with Flixbus and I took the opportunity to use the discount coupon that they had given me after the claims that I made.
Just that weekend a heat wave came to Portugal.
The bus dropped us off at the Parque das Nações station and I was shocked at how ugly and dirty everything was. This station would be the equivalent of the Campanhã station in Porto and there was no point of comparison.
While we were looking for the train to go to the hotel, I already realized that a couple of people were chasing us to rob us. So, from there, we were on alert all weekend.
The hotel area was decadent, and planes passed super close every 20 minutes. In general, throughout the city you hear a lot when the plane passes and it seems like a big problem to me; I don’t understand how they haven’t moved the airport yet.
After lunch, we took an Uber to go to the LX Factory and walked along the river to the Torre de Belém. The LX factory is a complex of bars and shops that tries to be something like what you would find in Germany or England.
Everything smelled like sewage, it was disgusting.
We were at 36 ºC and luckily, I grabbed the umbrella because that heat was unbearable. It was so oppressive that I didn’t even want to take pictures.
We walked a little further to the Torre de Belém and around 6:00 p.m. we decided to call an Uber to go have dinner and return early to the hotel.
Back at the hotel I felt horrible discomfort due to the heat. So, for the next day we decided to organize ourselves in a different way: start touring between 6 and 7 a.m. until 12, have lunch and return to the hotel. Then, at 6:00 p.m., go out again when the sun has gone down a bit.
On Saturday we had to tour the center of Lisbon and that was a sea of people, noise and TukTuks.
Also, since the night before was the São João holiday, the city was covered in garbage.
The heat of Lisbon reminded us of Valencia.
At noon we had lunch at Da Terra and went to the hotel. We were so overwhelmed and tired from the heat that we didn’t even think about using public transport anymore.
In the afternoon we visited what remained of the center and some viewpoints.
The next day we went to Cascais. It took us 40 minutes by train.
Initially Diego wanted to go to Sintra, but I told him that it was better to leave it for the future with more time and during low season.
Cascais is an area that has nothing but the beach. We saw the center and then we went along the promenade seeing the sea, rock formations and a couple of lighthouses that we found along the way.
Around the train station it was full of drug addicts and homeless people.
On the promenade nobody respects the cyclist area.
We had lunch at the Green Affair Restaurant and returned to Lisbon.
In the afternoon we visited the Parque das Nações area, which is the new area of Lisbon. Here it seemed that there were only foreigners.
I visited Lisbon with my dad in January 2015 and I had liked the city. This time, I found it dirty and smelly. Perhaps there is not as much decay and houses falling apart as in Porto, but there is more dirt and bad smell.
Diego says he found the city less decadent than when he visited in 2013.
After living in Porto, it turned out to me that Lisbon was flat (when in January 2015 it seemed to me that everything was walking up and down).
I found many homeless people and you also realized that there were many people who dedicated to stealing.
From the first day in Lisbon at 36ºC we were already looking forward to going back to Porto, which was at 24ºC.
Lisbon reminded us a lot of Valencia also because there are practically no trees, unlike Porto, that’s why we felt like we were in an oven.
When we planned to live in Portugal, Lisbon was an option and after this weekend, we thought it was very wise not to have chosen this city to emigrate.
Finally, something that shocked me is the gentrification of Lisbon. I try to speak Portuguese out of politeness, but there they speak to you directly in English and I realized that, in all the restaurants, they spoke to each other in English. It was super weird that it seems that there are no Portuguese left in Lisbon.
Expenses for 3 nights (euros):
Hotel: 372,68
Restaurants: 185,15
Uber: 58,72
Train: 14,75
Supermarket: 9,98
Flixbus: 7,96
Total: 649,24
Vegan restaurants we tried:
My Mothers Daughters
Green Pepper
https://goo.gl/maps/mt7h8EGjv7zy1wSQ9
Daterra Bairro Alto
https://goo.gl/maps/JBSLWzFuMiAwdmUu6
Rest Jardim Cerejas
https://goo.gl/maps/9X75Ls2HxrR7XzvT8
The Green Affair Cascais
https://goo.gl/maps/bDULBttxxtd6qduM8
The Green Affair Parque Das Naçoes
https://goo.gl/maps/nHLTgc8a9pJa5jrp7
Here is the link to my YouTube channel: