On Monday, September 3rd, we took the train to Amsterdam Airport, where we had our flight to Lisbon, Portugal, near 4.30PM. We were very excited and couldn’t wait until we (finally) could leave!! Halfway our flight, in Seville to be more exact, we had a small stop, to leave the passengers off who had booked a holiday in Seville. We also took the passengers along, who were going back to Amsterdam from Seville. It was near 7PM when we landed on Lisbon airport. The flight went really well and also our captain was making some jokes while telling about the local weather and how fast our plane was going etc. Either way, we could check in in our hotel near 9 that evening. Since we didn’t have any dinner on the way, we were really hungry! In the hotel a lady advised us to go to a chicken restaurant nearby. She told us it was still open and not to far away! We had a really good dinner over there! In the days that passed, we visited a lot!! Our hotel was located in the small town called Estoril, which is 30 minutes by train from Lisbon.
On Tuesday, September 4th, we visited the town of Estoril and the nearby small city called Cascais. 
We walked by the coast line as you can see on the picture! We didn’t do that much more that day, as it was really hot and we had to get used to this kind of heat. We did stop quite regular to have a refreshing drink! On Wednesday, September 5th, we took the train to Lisbon and went to visit the Sao Jorge Castle (Castelo de Sao Jorge like the Portuguese call it).
It looked like a real castle should look like. We continued our walk into the Alfama district and visited the famous Sé Cathedral.
It was really beautiful to see as it was really old and kept in very good shape compared to some other buildings I have seen so far while traveling! As we had climbed a lot, we also had to go back down, but our feet were aching (Especially mine as I didn’t expect to walk so much!) So to get back down, we decided to take the one of the old Lisbon Trams.
It was really fun to do, although we couldn’t sit in that little tram!! After only very little time we were back down in the centre of Lisbon!!
On Thursday, September 6th, we didn’t do much as we wanted to rest some.. We did go back to Cascais to walk around and perhaps do some shopping! Sadly enough we couldn’t find anything much we really liked, so we ended up buying nothing!!
On Friday, September 7th, we went to Parque De Nacoes which is located in the southern part of Lisbon. We had to take the train to get to Lisbon and then the Subway to get to the Park. It was and is there rather modern!
Besides all the modern buildings and art, we could use a cable car to get from one side of the Park to the other side.
We also visited the Lisbon Oceanarium where we saw many different kinds of sea creatures. It was amazing to see!!
On Saturday. September 8th we went to the beautiful place nearby Estoril and Cascais called Sintra. This town is on Unesco World Heritage list for it’s various wonderful buildings. Among them are 2 palaces, a castle and so much more!
We started with ‘Palacio Nacional de Sintra’ (Sintra National Palace). It was really awesome to see! It’s really hard to describe how wonderful it was from the inside.
The only advise I can give you, is to go to my website where you can see the pictures from the inside, so you can have a more detailed look at everything!! (
It’s the main courtyard of the Palace with a gallery in Mudejar style and tiles decorated in 16th century. The inside of the palace is even more breath taking! The same day we also visited another Palace nearby, it’s called Palacio de Pena (Pena Palace) .
It’s completely different from the Sintra Palace. The insides of the Pena Palace are kept much better then the inside of Sintra Palace. But I think this also comes due to the fact that it’s not allowed to take any pictures in the Pena Palace. (in the Sintra Palace you could walk around freely, touch everything and take pictures everywhere, even with using your flashes. In the Pena Palace it’s completely different. You have to follow a sort of ‘guided’ tour by using a map. You can look in most of the different rooms, but you can’t enter the room, you can start from the opening of the door to the room. There’s a red carpet you have to follow in the Pena Palace. Due to this, you can’t touch anything and it’s even forbidden to touch anything at all there. Only the things where it’s not too bad that you touched it, can be touched, everything else, you can’t reach. Taking pictures is also forbidden over there, so I think due to all of this, it’s rather ‘normal’ that Pena Palace is kept better than Sintra Palace, although both of them were really beautiful! ) (I tried to look on internet for a picture of the inside of the Pena Palace so you could have an idea on how it looks like, but funny enough I can’t find any.. I guess this shows how disciplined they are!). 
Not only the church is really beautiful, also the monastery is awesome! A more detailed picture of one of the pillars is added.
I guess the person who made it must have had lots of work to make such a beautiful art work!
Monday September 10th, we did a trip with a Hop On Hop Off Bus where we did a whole trip through the most important places in Lisbon.
There are 13 stops in total and you can get off at any time. If you finished visiting the place where you go off the bus, you can simply hop on the next one and continue your journey!! Sadly enough it was Monday and we didn’t knew that most of the museums and buildings are closed then. We walked around in the city and explored different districts, so either way, we did have a good time!! We also visited the Prince Henry monument to Discoveries.
It was rather huge but wonderful to see!! We did walk a whole lot that day, so we could sleep really well!!
Tuesday September 11th, we did a long trip to the Cristo Rei Statue located at the other side of the Tague river and in front of Lisbon. It’s a statue of Christ.
The foot on where the statue is placed is 80meters high and the Christ is near 30meters high. The complete statue is 110 meters high. You can get up the foot and get to where the Christ starts. As you can see on the right picture, it’s where there’s a fence. It’s a really huge fence, taller than I am. Probably it´s more than 2 meters high, but on such a height it’s normal that you can’t fall off just like that. It was really breath taking to see and worth all the trouble to get there! Even with my fear of heights I was really happy and proud of myself to go completely up and look at the awesome view around! Also the statue was wonderful!!
On Wednesday, September 12th we visited some really beautiful nature near Cascais. We visited Boca Do Inferno, also known as hell’s mouth.
It’s created by nature and really wonderful to see. The view was really breath taking! The remainder of the day we walked around near the coast line of Cascais and further to the west. We saw really beautiful ‘rocks’ which were created by nature like Boca Do Inferno!!
Thursday, September 13th, we went back to the beautiful city called Sintra. We still had to visit the ‘Castelo Dos Mouros’ also known as the Moorish Castle. It looked like a real castle should look like!
It was real great, though with my fear of heights it wasn’t easy and lots of patience was needed, especially if you know that on the path that you walked on to get higher in the castle, one side of the path was a huge wall and the other side, was rather low. Actually, you could climb over it, only on the other side of the wall, it could be very deep before there was some ground again. I was really afraid, but glad Arthur did have so much patience and didn’t mind that I couldn’t see everything because of my fear. I did get quite high and I’m very proud of that! That I succeeded with it!! In the afternoon, we took the bus and travelled to Cabo Da Roca. This is the most western point of mainland Europe.
It was really crowded over there with only tourists and only very few locals! It was awesome to see, though we were not alone!! We also bought a certificate which says there both Arthur and I were there that day and visited Cabo Da Roca. If you would ever come near, you should really see it!!
On Friday, September 14th we slowly realized that the end of our holidays was coming near. We decided to visit the Belem district again and visit the Belem Tower. It was great to see and we could climb a whole lot in that tower! We could even get to the complete top of the tower!!
The view you get from the top of the tower is really wonderful! You can see over the river Tague and the other side of Lisbon!! The remainder of the day, we had a meeting with my penfriend from Portugal. It was really wonderful to meet her! Especially if you write with each other for more than 3 years!!
On Saturday, September 15th, we decided to go back to Lisbon to do some shopping. We did find some great souvenirs from Portugal to take back home with us! Near the centre we could also find the Estrela Basilica.
It was beautiful to see from the inside. It was also very peacefully there, so that was good!
Sunday, September 16th, we didn’t do much.. We visited the centre of Cascais and spent some time at the beach of Estoril to rest! In the evening we also started packing as on Monday, we did have to go back to Holland. Monday was a really calm day, we didn’t do much just walked around and kept ourselves busy with drinking and resting. Our flight was in the evening, but the bus picked us up from our hotel near 5PM. The flight back home went really well, we could also find our luggage without too many problems so that’s good! The only thing that was less fun was the fact that we had to wait for the first train in Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. The first train left at 4AM, but since we landed near 12.30 AM we had to wait a few hours. It wouldn’t have been bad, if we weren’t so tired and if it wasn’t so cold. It was terrible! Not only the temperature was half from the temperature in Portugal, also the fact that I was tired made that I had really cold. Even wearing a pair of extra socks and extra T-shirts didn’t help to get it warmer. I guess you can understand how happy we were when at 8.30AM we were finally home and could sleep!!!!!!!!!!
Hey,
mooi foto’s zeg;) en mooi weer tuurlijk;)
Gr,
Leni