Lisbon - Dog Poop and a Beautiful Castle.

From Madeira, we returned to Lisbon, on Friday, April 15th. As we'd only spent one day in the city before flying out the previous Monday, we booked ourselves into the This Is Lisbon hostel in the Alfama area - the oldest, formerly Moorish, part of Lisbon. Before we'd stayed in a little budget hotel in Baixa, which was good enough for the night, but not a place to meet new people, so we were excited for the change.

We spent the afternoon wandering around Alfama and the Castello Sao Jorge (Saint George´s Castle). We weren't overly impressed with Alfama - although in character it was loads better than Baixa's commercialism, it was really dirty and really not as interesting as I was hoping for.

The exception to this is the Castle. At 7€, it was an expensive entrance fee for Portugal, but this was by far my favourite part of Lisbon. The actual fortress section of the Castle is largely intact and well labeled (excellent news for those of us with barely rudimentary Portuguese). The ruins of the former palace, which dates back to Moorish occupation in the 12th century, have been turned into an extensive and very picturesque garden, and the small museum has a wealth of in depth information on the history of Lisbon.

And from the towers of the keep, you can´t even see the dog poop on the streets below.


We went out for a night tour organized by our hostel (not a pub crawl, to our general confusion and sadness) and with a little bit of context and history, it was a little easier for us to begin to enjoy the city.

Although Porto certainly still has my heart as far as Portugese cities go, I´ll admit that I am sure Lisbon is the sort of gritty, honest city that I would absolutely learn to love with a few more days under my belt.

S