Apr 9, 2005 - Lisbon and Carcavelos

Lisboa (Lisbon in English) is the capital of Portugal with about 700,000 people. It was suprisingly beautiful. It was almost like the San Francisco Bay with a huge river emptying into an ear shaped bay, but the biggest difference was that it was warm (75) and sunny. Lisbon is a great place to spend a few days if you ever get the chance. Portugal is the poorest of the western european countries and there was evidence of this seen in their unrestored buildings, drug dealers and thieves on the streets trying to sell their goods, and cheep,...

Mar 11, 2005 - Lisbon

It is finally warm. We are in Lisbon after spending quite a long time in the train station in Barcelona trying to converse entirely in Spanish with the ticket agent. I did it (I'm so proud) and we wound up with tickets from Barcelona to Madrid, then we had to switch train stations in Madrid, then take the night train from Madrid to Lisbon. The night trains in Spain are much nicer than the ones in Italy. We actually got our own room that we shared with two other people. We had bunk beds and a sink and they ever give you a little bottle of...

Feb 23, 2005 - Belem

Today we went out to Belém, a coastal town with famous landmarks. On our way out on the tram, we stopped at a local market to look at the flowers, meats, fruits, and veggies. The meat lockers were stocked full of carcass; it smelled terrible. But the flowers were gorgeous! Our first stop in Belém was the National Coach Museum which displays vehicles from the 17th to 19th centuries used by the Embassy. Many of the coaches are intricately decorated with carvings and lots of gilt work. Second was a gorgeous old monastery: Jeronimoes...

Feb 22, 2005 - Sintra

Sintra! What a neat place!! The views from the castles on the hills to the ocean, west and south, were breathtaking! Father and I traveled from Lisbon to Sintra via the metro and the train. The trip to Sintra took about 45 minutes. Sintra is a traditional, old Portuguese city with narrow streets with diversely painted building as well as beautiful old homes and castles. The main reason for coming to this city was to see Pena Palace, an architecturally famous castle on top of a hill. (see description below) So up, up, up the hill we rode a...

Feb 18, 2005 - to Lagos

The next morning Jason and I saw a noisy political demonstration enroute to the bus stations. We caught a bus to Lagos, a small town on the south coast of Portugal. Heather, one of the technicians, has been living there for a few months. Peter, Jennifer, and Lisa B., all techs, were there visiting. The bus ride was about 4.5 hours through gorgeous country side. I definitely enjoyed the scenery; mostly flat with an occasionally rolling hill, near the coast there was more relief.

Dec 7, 2004 - Lisbon,Portugal

I had taken a night train to Lisbon. A long ways to go. Didn't seem to me like much there to see. I toured the national highlites. They had a really cool fortress on the ocean port. The place is called Torre de Belem, I think it was the Knights Templar headquarters. They also have a hugh monument to Christopher Colombus. Overall it seemed like a gritty town.

Oct 28, 2004 - Lisbon, Portugal and Helsinki, Finland

Hi, Just adding some photos from the conference in Lisbon. Please note that all photos are courteousy of Laura, a friend from the conference. The other photos are from my friend, Tuuli's wedding in Helsinki. The photos were taken by another friend, Anna. Thanks for the photos guys - hope you don't mind them being on my website!

Sep 28, 2004 - Portugal

The first leg to our Around the World ticket was from London to Lisbon, Portugal. We were packed and ready to go, excited for our first leg (this leg is especially important on our around the world ticket, because if you miss it the entire ticket is cancelled). With this in mind, we turned up three hours early to London Gatwick Airport, only to discover that our flight was actually departing from London Heathrow!! Panic!! We made it, what a start....... In Portugal we spent a few days in Lisbon and on the coast (Cascais) an hour east of...

Sep 3, 2004 - Lisboa

Great city, with pretty streets & plenty of squares... We stayed at the YHA and managed to score a room with only two single bunk beds (Gr8!!) The castle had nice views, and the weather was fab! There was a fair bit to see, we took a tram to a place about 20+ mins outside of the city centre to this cool statue, there was also a very nice fortress or castle (we didn't go inside though) but it did look very nice as it was on the edge of the sea.

Aug 26, 2004 - Overnachting Lissabon

Suico Atlantico Hotel Lisbon Rua da Gloria, 3 1250-114 LISBOA Tel.: (+351) 213.461.713 Fax: (+351) 213.469.013 Auto gehuurd. Het is een GOLF, een nieuwe. Hotel gevonden, met een beetje moeite. Twee sterren is nie veel soeps, gelukkig maar voor 1 nachtje. Nog iets drinken in de bar en dan gaan slapen.

Jul 7, 2004 - Sintra to Lisbon

I spent the night before deciding whether or not I should try to leave at like 7am to get back to Lisbon to catch a 9am bus back to Madrid where I could catch another bus to Barcelona. There was one leaving later that night but I was afraid that it might be full for some reason. 7am was pretty early to leave so we took our chances and enjoyed the morning. I woke up again before the rest of the guys and went to explore the bottom of the cliffs where the ocean comes into the rocks. We all relaxed for awhile enjoying our last time on this...

Jul 5, 2004 - Lisbon to Sintra

We all woke up and packed up our stuff and on the way out of the campsite we realized we hadn't paid for any of the 3 days we were there. I tried rationalizing the situation by telling myself that we had paid 6 euro for 2 loads of laundry and that was enough. Anyway we drove out of the city and to Sintra-Cascais National Park about an hour northwest of Lisbon. We were driving around the windy up and down mountain roads and made a wrong turn and ended up running over an object while doing a K-turn. The object turned out to be a piece of rock...