Belem on the Coast
Our First Day in Lisbon
From Seville we jumped across the border and flew to Lisbon, where we had nearly a week to tour around the old city. The flight had a quick connection in Madrid, where the airline was unable to transfer our bags over to the next plane in time. That was unfortunate, but the baggage handling company was able to deliver it to the door of our AirBnB the next morning — so it wasn’t a big deal. The next day, we set out to see the city, starting in Belém.
Belém is an older neighbourhood on the coast and is known for Pasteis de Belem, the Jerónimos Monastery, and the Torre de Belem.
Pasteis de Belém would be considered by many to be the source of the best egg tarts in Lisbon, of which there seems to be a national obsession. Naturally, we went to try them out.
At first we were dismayed by the long line outside but we then realized that it was only for takeout customers, and that they have 400 seats inside spread across multiple rooms. It was quite the operation but the service was excellent, as it generally was everywhere in Portugal. This was a surprise because we’ve been to a lot of places in Europe with poor table service.
In addition to egg tarts there is also a full menu of pastries, both sweet and savoury. We ordered lunch but everything other than the egg tarts was mediocre at best.
Just down the street from the Pasteis is the Jerónimos Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular place to see gothic architecture.
We were somewhat confused when we arrived since we were planning on getting a combined ticket for the monastery and the maritime museum but it is no longer for sale. Instead of paying 2 Euros to see the maritime museum, it cost 6.50 Euros so we decided to skip it because we weren’t too crazy about seeing it. The monastery itself was kind of bizarre. We went into the cathedral part for free. It was dark, but the columns were quite ornate.
Then we lined up to pay to go into the monastery, but it was just a square courtyard with nothing really to see. In hindsight, we didn’t think it was worth the cost of the ticket.
When we left the monastery to walk along the coast, the day got more interesting. There is a nice waterfront to walk along between the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, a tall monument with a paid lookout at the top, and the Torre de Belem. These are the kinds of wide open waterfronts that make cities nice places to live.
The Torre de Belem is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and can be entered for a fee. We didn’t go in as online research suggested that the view from the top wasn’t all that impressive.
We were fortunate to arrive at the end of the day, when the lighting was excellent for photos. There was also a plaza in front of the Torre that seemed like a nice place to hang out and listen to buskers.
