Day 4 in Lisbon and time feels like it’s flying by. This vacation has been great this far but today’s the last day Cherry, Nicole and I will be in this city together 
Nevertheless, we wanted to make full use of our time together here, so we set out pretty early to Belém- another district in Portugal. In there, we found our favourite place in Lisbon. Mosteiro dos Jerónimos was by far the most beautiful place that we have been to. The exterior was already pretty grand, but we were blown away by the interior. The minute we stepped in, we sat in the middle of the square and tried to soak in the whole beauty of its architecture.
We also met this other tourist that took this amazing photo of us- as featured on my Instagram hehe. He has mad skills I swear.
After being wowed by this attraction, we moved on to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos- a monument that was located close to the monastery. Unfortunately, as we didn’t have any guide with us, we didn’t know what it signified and left after we snapped some pictures.
Cherry also tried the Gazpacho- a cold soup that’s only served from March to September. It tasted good, but it was much colder than we all expected. The salads looked really good as well, pity that none of us ordered it.
After lunch, we went to check out the Tower of Belem. It is supposedly a UNESCO world heritage site, but it was rather underwhelming because it couldn’t match up to the Monastery and it’s value laid in its historical context more than anything else.
Before leaving Belem, we made our way to Pastéis de Belém- a bakery that made THE BEST Portugese Egg Tarts in all of Portugal. You know it’s good when even the locals recommend it. It was the first warm Pastéis de Nata we had, the crust was flaky and crispy which was a nice contrast to the creamy custard that wasn’t too sweet. All in all, we agree that it really is THE BEST one in this city.
Unfortunately for us, the good sunny weather the past few days didn’t last and it poured while we were walking back to the city centre. We took refuge in MUDE (the fashion and design museum) and hobo-ed in H&M after. We were so desperate to sit that I pretended to try on shoes while we rested in there.
When the rain subsided, we had to find a place for dinner, so we went to check out ALDEA Restaurante. First, the guy at the door was way over enthusiastic in getting us to eat in his restaurant. He basically kept us standing outside in the rain and cold, introducing the ENTIRE MENU to us. He also kept repeating “LADIES” to get our attention (as if we could pay attention to anything else) and used “FOREVER MORE” in place of “further more repeatedly. He was getting on my nerves and I only nodded to eating there because I was growing impatient at his long windedness and it was really cold outside. Unfortunately, dinner was pretty bad because our portion sizes were really small and the chorizo sausage we ordered to share was excessively oily and salty. With all of us being healthcare/medicine students, we could not bring ourselves to finish it. The worst part of the dinner was when the waiter overcharged Nicole for her mango mousse and the bread and butter served to us in the beginning actually cost more than my main course. 🙄🙄🙄 so a word of advice: DON’T EAT THERE.
Other than the minor negative incident at the end of the day, today has been pretty wonderful and I think I am going to miss Lisbon so so much when I leave for Madrid tomorrow. I didn’t expect to love this city as much as I do now but Lisbon has really grown on me. Thank you for having such wonderful people, food and sights- I had the best Portuguese experience I could ever ask for.
adventuresofxmm 