Lisbon, Portugal

Yesterday, May 28, we arrived in Lisbon after a long red-eye flight to Madrid. After rushing through the Madrid airport and going through customs a second time, we made our second plane right as it was boarding. At about 2 pm Lisbon time, we arrived at our hostel, the Lisbon Lounge.


After settling into our room, we headed out to the city center called Rossio, where we spent the rest of the day wandering around through neighborhoods, past monuments, and through the city´s cathedral, an old Romanesque temple--we even tried out the metro, and we are happy to say that we have not found ourselves lost...yet.

The Cathedral

The Pombaline Baixa, or lower town
is where a lot of
shopping and outdoor cafés
are located. Our hostel was located
nearby on a side street.

The Arco da Rua Augusta, which is the
main artery of the Lower Town.

All of the streets in the city center are tiled like this.

Today, March 29, we decided to go to the Elevador de Santa Justa, which connects to the Convento do Carmo, or the Carmelite Convent. We decided not to spend the money and go up in it, but rather decided to look for the Castelo de Sao Jorge, which is located on one of the largest hills in the city, and has the best view of Lisbon and the coast. After hiking up side streets in the general direction of the castle, we finally found it and it was well worth the journey.

The Elevador de Santa Justa

The St. George Castle

The view from the castle

View of the coast

Lastly on the agenda for today is to catch the train to Madrid later in the evening, a ten hour trip from here. We have enjoyed Lisbon and cannot wait to see everything else that our trip has to offer. Adeus for now!

The day has arrived!

It's t-minus 4 1/2 hours 'til we leave to go to the airport. Our flight officially leaves around nine PM and we're taking a red-eye to Madrid and should be arriving around ten in the morning on the 28th (or so the itinerary says) and then flying 30 minutes from Madrid to Lisbon, Portugal. We spent all day yesterday packing our bags ever-so-carefully and weighing them in so as not to go over the 22 lb limit for carry-on items, and ladies and gentleman, we have successfully weighed our bags in at about 17 lbs!!! (And yes we are proud of that!) So now, without furthur ado, we wish you all fairwell from this side of the world and are excited to let everyone know about our travels!

Two weeks out--my how time flies.

It seemed like just yesterday that me and Kris bought plane tickets to Lisbon on a whim, but now that our trip is two weeks out, we're realizing that we are quickly running out of time for last minute preparations! Both of us are thrilled to be heading to Western Europe for a month--so far our itinerary includes heading to:

Lisbon, PORTUGAL
Madrid, SPAIN
Paris, FRANCE
Milan, Florence, Rome (including Vatican City), Bari, & Venice, ITALY
Petras, Olympia, Corinth, & Athens, GREECE

...and last but not least....

we'll be flying out of Vienna, AUSTRIA.

We know it seems like a lot of places to travel to for only four weeks, but we're ready to take on the challenge! Plus we figure, any more than four weeks and we'll be broke! So now our next step is booking some youth hostels and figuring out the Eurail schedule, not to mention weighing in our backpacks to make sure we do not cross the limit of 22 lbs for carry-on items! Wish us luck because we'll need it. We leave the 27th of May and return the 24th of June. We'll try to update the blog as much as possible (as long as internet cafés are readily available) to keep you all informed of our crazy adventures!

Love,

Kris and Kel