====================================================================== Title: Lisbon 2023 Date: 2023-09-28 Link: https://spool-five.com/vacation/lisbon_vacation/ Word Count: 1715 ====================================================================== Lisbon, 2023 ============ -Bon Voyage [2023-09-18 Mon]- I got on a flight to Lisbon around five o'clock, arrived there around seven. Seonjeong was arriving a little later on a flight from London, so I hung out at the arrivals gate, having some coffee and a croissant. She had already spent around a week and a half in Paris and London, and had really loved both. I was so excited for her. She had been really nervous about the trip before travelling. She kept telling me that she wasn't looking forward to it at all and I felt so worried for her. She wasn't even looking forward to seeing me, because she felt that she was really ugly after loosing a lot of weight. So, when I heard that she was meeting lots of people and having nice experiences, I was so happy for her. Her flight to Lisbon was a little delayed. She called me after she arrived, when she couldn't find her way to the baggage collection area. Eventually she made it through. I remember her coming through the arrivals gate, it took her a while to see me, but when she did she smiled brightly. She looked so beautiful. We hugged and I felt really happy to see her again. We got a taxi to the hotel and checked in. The room was nice (and huge!). She came over to my bed to cuddle me and it felt like no time had passed at all since we had been cuddling together in Dasan. -Exploring Lisbon [2023-09-19 Tue]- We decided to spend the first day in Lisbon wandering the city a bit and getting a feel for it. It was really great. This was probably the hottest day (or maybe I just wasn't used to the temperature yet!), but not too hot. Around 25-27 degrees. We managed to see a lot of things. We visited St. Jorge's Castle, which had some amazing views of the city. We saw a cool camera obscura thing there. We sat out on the street drinking coffee. We went to a pharmacy to get sun screen for me! We also picked up some nice, matcha-tea-flavoured toothpaste there. It was a great first day in the city, we were able to explore it at our own pace and it had plenty to offer. View from the Hotel[1] =>[1] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230919_083610.jpg ![2] =>[2] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230919_112032.jpg ![3] =>[3] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230919_125356.jpg ![4] =>[4] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230919_125447.jpg ![5] =>[5] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230919_133002.jpg ![6] =>[6] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230919_144002.jpg ![7] =>[7] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230919_144552.jpg ![8] =>[8] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230919_164532.jpg -Sintra [2023-09-20 Wed]- Our second day in Lisbon was our busiest. We had booked a tour that took up the whole day. Our first stop was the beautiful seaside town of Cascais. We walked along the jetty and had an amazing pastry and some great iced coffee. It was only a short stop, but it would be great to go back and see more of Cascais. We also drove past a huge casino and a hotel where royal families, politicians, etc. would stay, as well as spies like Ian Fleming! Apparently the setting (including the nearby Casino) were part of the inspiration for the first Bond novel (Casino Royale). Next, we drove to Sintra. On the way there, the tour guides explained some of the history of the place. I won't go into it too much here, but it was pretty interesting. The area is a micro-climate, being slightly more temperate and humid than Lisbon and other Southern parts of Portugal. Because of this, throughout history many people tried to settle there (with the cooler weather being less prone to disease during the summer months, and the soil more fertile). The place really started to get its current identity during the time of Kind Ferdinand of Portugal, who was originally of Austrian decent (House of Saxe-Coburg). He had a particular vision for the place, stemming from ideals associated with the Romantic movement that was popular in Europe at the time. His crowing achievement was the Pena Palance, located high above the town of Sintra. This was our first stop. The palace was breathtaking and crowded! In incorporated around 26 different architectural styles, blending traditional Portuguese styles with Indian, Greek, Gothic, etc. This was all a part of the 'Romanticist' aspect of the design. As the tour guide noted, his mother is a history teacher, and found some of the juxtapositions of style distasteful. However, I found it really beautiful. Even the garden was a mish-mash of botanical species, including a row of 200 year old Sequoia trees. It took a while to make our way through the palace, and by the end we were getting a little tired and hungry. Our final stop was the Quinta da Regaleira, an incredible estate further down the mountain. Sintra is full of these kinds of estates, with similar aesthetic sensibilities. Would definitely like to go back and visit some more of them some day. One of the main attractions in the Quinta da Regaleira is the 'Initiation Well', an 'inverted tower' that is rich with symbolic significance. Broadly, the well represented the cycle of death/rebirth. You descend down into a series of tunnels underneath, with one representing paradise, one representing hell, and one representing purgatory. Only one of them is the 'exit' (purgatory). Everything was very beautiful at this palace and its gardens. ![9] =>[9] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_095213.jpg ![10] =>[10] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_101025.jpg ![11] =>[11] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_114650.jpg ![12] =>[12] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_120326.jpg ![13] =>[13] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_122952.jpg ![14] =>[14] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_123923.jpg ![15] =>[15] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_130657.jpg ![16] =>[16] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_140500.jpg ![17] =>[17] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_152734.jpg ![18] =>[18] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_161136.jpg ![19] =>[19] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_161554.jpg ![20] =>[20] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230920_163911.jpg -Exploring Lisbon Again [2023-09-21 Thu]- We spent the morning of the third day in Lisbon hanging out in the hotel. It was raining outside, so it was perfect timing to take a rest. In the afternoon, we went to the Time Out market for some delicious food. Then, we visited a modern art museum and walked around the Chiado neighbourhood some more. Throughout the trip, I had been really impressed with the amount of bookstores in Lisbon, so when passing by one we decided to stop in. They had an English books section, and had copies of the 'Selected Poems of Lord Byron'. I decided to buy a copy, since we had seen the inn that he would stay at while in Sintra the day before. When I bought the book, they 'stamped' the first page for me. Later, in the hotel, I looked at the stamp and realised that the random little bookshop we had decided to visit was actually the oldest operating bookshop in the world! We sat out on the front porch/garden of the 'Pharmacy Musem' and had some coffee and creme brulee. The weather was perfect. That evening, we went to a little concert of Fado songs ('Fado in Chiado'). It was really amazing, two singers, a guy playing a guitar, and a guy playing a traditional mandolin-looking thing. Afterwards, we had some dinner in an Italian restaurant. ![21] =>[21] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230921_183930.jpg ![22] =>[22] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230921_191156.jpg -Last Day in Lisbon [2023-09-22 Fri]- For our last day in Lisbon we left our bags at the hotel and wandered the city once again! We went souvenir shopping and went back to the oldest bookshop (now that we knew what it was). We had some Ramen for lunch. We had a wonderful time in Portugal and it was sad leaving it. We arrived back in Dublin quite late, and were immediately hit with a huge temperature drop (from around 25 degrees in Lisbon that evening to the 8 degree night-temperature of Dublin!) -Busy Dublin [2023-09-23 Sat]- We explored Dublin a bit on Saturday. We went to the EPIC emigration museum and visited other parts of Dublin like St Stephen's Green, Grafton Street and Trinity. We had some Japanese food on Camden Street, and then visited Temple Bar, where SeonJeong got to see a bit of Dublin's famous pub and music scene. -Book of Kells [2023-09-24 Sun]- On our second day in Dublin, we visited the Book of Kells and Long Room (which had been sold out the day before!). We had some Korean food before the bus, which SeonJeong was quite impressed with. On Sunday evening we had a long bus journey to Donegal, with some very cold air-conditioning. Seonjeong started to develop a flu. On Sunday night, we arrived in Donegal, and Seonjeong met my parents and Bailey. She gave them some beautiful gifts from Korea. ![23] =>[23] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230924_221118.jpg _Bailey with his present from Korea_ -Rest Day [2023-09-25 Mon]- Seonjeong was feeling much worse on our first proper day in Donegal, so we decided to spend the day resting instead of going out much. It was nice. We watched Mr. Sunshine together and stayed in bed. In the evening, we went out for dinner at the Yellow Pepper. Gillian and Conner joined us and the food was surprisingly amazing! -Donegal wilderness [2023-09-26 Tue]- We went for a drive around Donegal on the Tuesday. We had unusually great weather for it (well, a mixture of sun and rain, but enough sun to make it worthwhile). We visited Glenveagh and Horn Head, and went for a short walk in Ard's Forest. We had to rush back home for the bus. ![24] =>[24] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230926_134429.jpg ![25] =>[25] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230926_142149.jpg ![26] =>[26] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230926_143930.jpg ![27] =>[27] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230926_152208.jpg ![28] =>[28] https://spool-five.com/lisbonimg/IMG_20230926_154044.jpg -Going home [2023-09-27 Wed]- We left Wednesday morning for the airport. Right as we were arriving, a horrible storm was starting. She really got quite lucky with the weather throughout the trip, the miserable winter weather held off right until the end. She was the best weather fairy I have ever travelled with!