My journey was about to start at the 14th of March – pretty relaxed I had to take the train at 12 from Hauptbahnhof. As I didn`t see Conny for a while we met for an hour while I was preparing the last things for my travels. I realized that I didn’t really plan a lot and Conny told me that I could take the train from Ostbahnhof and where and when – so good to have a pro as a friend.
Way to early I arrived at the train station and had some time for magazine and food shopping. With everything in my little backpack I went to the platform and the train arrived early – I easily found an empty carriage and felt pretty lucky. Until Hauptbahnhof when the first family with two little kids sat down next to me. Ok, I can handle this – it’s your holidays – relax – I told myself. Then the next stop – another women with a toddler. It was the moment I realized I sat down in the “family”carriage which was especially reserved for families with little children. I started to accept my fate, read my magazines and ignored the fact that the other parents treated me like an undesirable invader. In Frankfurt I had to find the Bus to Frankfurt Hahn which worked out well except for the fact that Frankfurt Hahn is really really far away from Frankfurt and that the ride took another 2 hours. Finally I arrived at the airport and made my way through the check-in.
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| The apartment |
After a two-hours flight and with another stolen hour because of the time difference I arrived in Porto which was slightly warmer than Germany during these days. I kind of caught the last metro to the city centre and made my way to my airbnb hosts. And as my rule for fasting/Lent is that while I am travelling the fasting is suspended I headed for the next place to eat something and ordered a sweet pizza which was awesome. My hosts were nice – an artists couple that kind of spent the whole 3 days of my stay in their living room sitting next to each other not leaving the flat at all. I had a nice little room which unfortunately was pretty cold (due to a missing heating system which is quite common in Portugal) but the blankets where warm enough to make me survive the next days there. Its always a funny thing when I arrive in a new place at night – I don’t really have a feeling for the city and cannot imagine how it actually is there.
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| I couldn’t finish it |
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| Livraria Lello |
So the next morning was a nice surprise except for the weather which was much colder than I expected and the fact that all the clothes I brought with me were rather good for plus twenty degrees. My hosts told me about THE places to see for my short stay and I started to walk downhill to look at the other half of Porto which was connected with several bridges that looked pretty impressive. I also used a one stop train kind of thing from Batalha to Ribeira which was funny as the ride was very slow and I seemed to be the first and only person to use it. After another hour of walking around the centre it started to rain – great – something I really wasn’t prepared for so I had to go shopping ( I know too bad 🙂 ) and bought a new jacket with a hood. I also went to the big food and souvenir market in Bolhao and later walked on through the city. The weather was just too bad so I decided to go to a cafe and to relax and read for a while.
After 5 weeks without any sugar I couldn’t finish a muffin and a milkshake which was a good sign that my body actually still is capable of recognising too huge amounts of sugar. Accepting the never ending rain I walked on to Livraria Lello e Irmão which is an awesome library that looked like in a Harry Potter movie (which was actually in fact the Harry Potter library which I found out a lot later). After another hour of freezing and two more layers of clothes I decided to drive to the beach by metro (instead of hiking there). Once I arrived my batteries recharged at the very moment I saw the sea and the nice lights and the sun which was just coming out of the clouds. I felt so happy and really enjoyed walking around – which is why I ended up walking back the whole way to my apartment which took me like 3-4 hours including a stop at the local supermarket where I bought my dinner. Finally back at the apartment I ate my egg and potato patata thing and later fell asleep.
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| Pretty tiles that can be found everywhere in Portugal |
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| Just pretty |
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| What the hell is this |
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| Nature’s beauty |
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| Let’s go surfin‘ |
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| Going somewhere else |
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| Sunset |
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| My little friend |
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| Fishermans friend |
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| Shrek was here |
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| Nearly back at the apartment |
The next day I had some more hours to spend before my bus went to Lisboa. In the morning it was very cold again and you couldn’t even see the other side of the river because of the fog. Anyways I went to the other side which is famous for all the port-wine places and manufactures and walked along the river for a while. Later the sun got really strong and I enjoyed the city centre during sunlight and went to several nice areas around the city. The bus stop was very close to the apartment and I thought I was pretty lucky because of that – but only until I looked at my priorly booked ticket and realized that I booked it for the wrong date which was already in the past. So I bought another ticket for 16 € and tried not to be too mad at myself.
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| Brad and I |
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| Lisbon Tram |
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| And same thing in green |
Later we had a relatively expensive lunch in the touristic city center of Sintra and went back by train. By then we were so tired we nearly fell asleep in the train. Back in Lisbon I decided to have a first look at Lisboa even though my feet shouted “Bring me to a bed”. Punctual for another Sangria tasting 😀 I arrived at the hostel again. That night I met two french guys which ended up in drinking a lot of red wine and some weird misunderstandings and nice conversations.
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| Main sights |
The next two days I spent walking around Lisbon – to the castle to – to the zoological garden (where I again was the first and only visitor) – to some parks – to the museum of communication (again the first visitor) – I escaped from a free walking tour by walking slower and slower then pretending to make a picture and hiding behind a corner 😀
I ate so many nice sweets and every now and then hid in a cafe when it started to rain.
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| So many stairs in Lisbon |
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| But it always pays off |
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| Communication museum |
I walked the long way along the river which was awesome as there was so much to see – many restaurants – a floating castle(Torre de Belem) – a kids run – a sailors monument and so on and so on. I went to the LX factory which is a bit like the RAW area in Berlin with hipster restaurants and art places and of course to the Praca do Comercio . Oh and I went to a shopping centre when it was raining again – and felt pretty hairy so I decided to go for plucking my eyebrows. The woman at the hairdressers didn’t really speak English but I trusted her to understand my gestures – but when she brought me to a seperate room and I had to lay down I got a bit scared.
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| Victoria |
On Sunday I strolled around for the last time and then went back to the Bus station to go back to Porto. Strangely the way back took one hour longer even though we didn’t have any traffic – but I was busy with my inability to hold back my urinary urgency and the time until I found out there was a toilet on board was pretty much a nightmare :D.
Way to early I arrived at the train station and had some time for magazine and food shopping. With everything in my little backpack I went to the platform and the train arrived early – I easily found an empty carriage and felt pretty lucky. Until Hauptbahnhof when the first family with two little kids sat down next to me. Ok, I can handle this – it’s your holidays – relax – I told myself. Then the next stop – another women with a toddler. It was the moment I realized I sat down in the “family”carriage which was especially reserved for families with little children. I started to accept my fate, read my magazines and ignored the fact that the other parents treated me like an undesirable invader. In Frankfurt I had to find the Bus to Frankfurt Hahn which worked out well except for the fact that Frankfurt Hahn is really really far away from Frankfurt and that the ride took another 2 hours. Finally I arrived at the airport and made my way through the check-in. 
Brad – my companion for that day – and I drove by train to Cascais and started our little hike. The weather was great as predicted and we made our way through the city of Cascais first and later went up and downhill in the countryside. We also tried to climb up some more stoney hills but stopped when we realized that going back down might be a little too dangerous. After another hour or two we recognized a path next to us which looked much prettier and nicer than ours and we only had to climb over a lying around tree bole to get there. Our destination was pretty close already and we went to the top of another hill with a big cross on it. There we met 2 american girls and talked to them for a bit – and found out that we accidentally broke into the park area which has an entrance fee of 10 Euro. I was pretty sure that was the payback for my double bus ticket to Lisbon. They also gave us their tickets to the castle of Sintra because they already visited it so we could go into the castle as well. The castle was amazing very colourful it looked like a disney castle and not really like a fortress to hold invaders. 
Sonst nix zu tun - Oder was? 