The day before we left on our trip, Alex told us that we HAD to go see Belem tower near Lisbon. This kid…He knows more about geography and famous places than we do, seriously. So we told him we’d try to go see it and take a picture for him. He told us that the tower was built in the middle of the river, but after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the river was redirected and the tower ended up near the shore. But indeed, the tower was built on a tiny island next to river shore from the very beginning.
We got to Belem shortly before five. The tower was closing so we had no opportunity to see it inside, but we did take lots of pictures.
We didn’t have much time before dark, so we asked one of the locals how to find Belem Pastries shop. The night before I saw a facebook post by one of our friends who was travelling in Lisbon that same weekend. She posted a picture of delicious Belem pastries, and I knew we had to get them! Walking from the tower to the shop was a bit of a journey as we constantly thought we were going in the wrong direction. The area around the tower is not really “historic”, but the views from by the river were still pretty.
And finally, when we started getting closer to places like this, we knew we were on the right track.
Finally! We found the blue sign of the shop “Belem Pastries”. The shop is behind Robert on this picture. It is very old and very famous. It sells a great variety of sweet and savory pastries. And they are very affordable! The most traditional pastry is a custard kind with flaky shell. They are delish! We bought a few of those and a variety of other sweet kinds plus a whole bunch of savory ones for a quick dinner and couldn’t believe how inexpensive everything turned out. The same stuff would have cost twice as much in the UK.
After the shop, we headed home where we ate more pastries-haha.
The next morning, we packed our bags, ate a late breakfast, took a bunch of pictures by the sea and said goodbye to our fancy hotel.
Robert’s eyes are bluer than mine or something, but he has a much harder time looking up for pictures in the sun.
We had a few hours to spare before the flight, so we drove to central Lisbon just to get a glimpse of the city. The airport was only 20 minutes drive from there, so we were not worried. But with finding parking (and having to make sure we didn’t park illegally) we had just an hour left to quickly walk around the center.
We mostly wanted to find these iconic Lisbon trams.
They are cool and everything…but then I remembered that for twelve years of my life I live in the city where this kind of trams were the norm (well, they were not as old-fashioned looking) and I used trams almost every day. So they are cute but nothing spectacular.
Well, one thing that is still cute and spectacular even after thirteen years is Robert. Thank you for a fantastic relaxing trip! Love you.
Lyana.
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