Our Weekend Trip to Lisbon

Last week, we realized that Monday, October 6th was the Muslim holiday, Eid-Al-Adha. This is one of the bank holidays observed in Ghana... we're still not sure why as approx 95% of the country is Christian. Regardless, we happily took the extra day to the weekend and decided on an impromptu trip to Lisbon, Portugal. (To be fair, we had planned to go at the end of October for Dan's birthday, but the extra "free" day made it too hard to pass up).

We took the red eye flight out of Accra on Thursday night arriving at the crack of dawn on Friday morning. Ate some breakfast at the hotel, chugged some coffee and hit the road to start soaking up the city. We actually benefitted from our early start as we got to see almost all the monuments and sights before the rest of the tourists were up and moving. Since Dan hates waiting in line more than anything (aside from maybe my Steelers), this was a welcomed surprise.

We spent much of the weekend sightseeing, eating delicious food and drinking surprisingly reasonably-priced Portuguese wine. I think it's safe to say we would recommend Lisbon to anyone. It has all the European charm of the bigger tourist cities, but at a fraction of the price. We were shocked at how reasonably priced things were, especially dinners and wine at well-respected restaurants.

Things that we learned about Lisbon/Portugal:

• Portuguese as a language may look similar to Spanish, but it is NOT pronounced anything like it. It sounds more like a Russian/German blend than Spanish.
• After dinner coffee comes in teeeeeny tiny espresso-like cups
• Lisbon is San Francisco's sister city. They have a Golden Gate Bridge/Bay Bridge combo and cars like the F-train that go around the city.
• While it is very walkable, the streets are all tiled so a bit slippery and uneven. Also, the underground metro was impressively efficient and clean.
• While Port is a bit too sweet for us, we learned that we actually really enjoy Madeira (the other of the sweet wines for which Portugal is known). This was especially enjoyable considering I grew up in Madeira Beach, Florida, and attended Elementary and Middle schools of the same namesake.
• That's it because we don't want to give it all away... you should go experience it for yourself!

And let the photo montage begin:

 Front of the train station

 I'm kind of obsessed with these lamps

 Many buildings are covered in beautiful tile work

This is a monument in the Placa da Comercios. We were told that this is where all commerce was done in Lisbon long ago because all the ships would dock here from Africa and unload. 

Lisbon's replica of the bridges of San Francisco. It's the color of the Golden Gate and has the two suspensions (and is quite long). But the anchors look more like the Bay Bridge with the X's...

Convent de Carmo - There was a sizable earthquake in 1755 that required much of the city to be rebuilt. This convent's roof was lost but never rebuilt making it open air. We think there was a concert hosted here the night before as they were taking lots of equipment out when we arrived and the cables were likely holding speakers.

Thanks for the lovely weekend getaway, Lisboa. We loved you.