Lisboa

Pictures from our last day in Portugal.  The Beautiful views are from the Castello San Jorge.

Torre De Belem

After our trip, I logged into my Bank of America account where I had a visual identifier I had chosen years ago of a castle.  Well I recognized it immediately as the Torre De Belem, what a small world.

Lisbon - The Home Stretch

Our last stop on our European vacation was Lisbon.  What a beautiful city.  Reminds me so much of San Francisco!

 

Day 14 - Madrid - Our Last Day!

After a three hour flight delay heading back to Madrid for our last night and day. We started off the day by going to the Prado. I remember it being much more impressive when we were there in high school. After our morning the museum we went to the Parque Maria Luisa and walked around for awhile before heading back to the hotel to relax before our long day of traveling home.

Monument to Alfonso XII.

Inside the Palacio de Cristal was a crazy art installation.  It was a tower made out of all plastic (mostly white) household products.  If you look closely you can see laundry baskets, trash cans, Tupperware, baby bathtubs and lawn chairs.

We then walked through the beautiful rose garden.

Bye bye Europe! What a great trip! Can't wait to go back!

Day 13 - Lisbon - Castillo San Jorge and the Se

Our second day in Lisbon was far more relaxed than the first, especially after a really good night's sleep!  We started the morning by taking the Elevador Santa Justa. Aside from being a tourist attraction it is used to connect the city center with the area above the city on the cliffs that overlook the city.

From the top you could see down to the city center below.

And the Castillo San Jorge which we visited later in the day.

And the river or the ocean or whatever technical body of water that is considered.

From there we went up to the Castillo San Jorge. It looked really neat from the outside but the inside was somewhat of a disappointment but the views were good.

Just down the hill from the Castillo was the Se, one of the main churches in Lisbon.  The Se was founded in 1150.

From the pictures you can see that Lisbon had very large elevation changes in a very short period of time.  They use funiculars to get up those hills quickly.  We took both the Elevador de Bica and the Elevador de Gloria during the day.

Day 12 - Lisbon - Torre del Belem

From the Monastery we went to the Padrao Dos Descobrimentos, which is a monument dedicated to Portuguese who took park of the Age of Discovery or the Age of Exploration. 

The monument is very near the Torre del Belum.  The tower was built in the 1500's and was used at first as a fortress and then as a political prison.

Excuse the odd picture of me, it was incredibly windy out there!

Day 12 - Lisbon - Jardims and the Mosteiro

On one of our bus tours, we went out to Belem, an area just west of Lisbon. After a late lunch we set out to explore with our first stop being at the Jardim do Ultramar. These gardens were supposed to be beautiful but between the buildings that were supposed to have exhibits being completely empty and the park preparing for a festival, it was quite a disappointment. We did see a few peacocks and a few swans!

From there we went to the Mosteiro Dos Jeronimos.  The Monastery is one of Lisbon's most famous landmarks that dates back to 1550 and survived the earthquake that leveled most of the city. 

The cloister inside the monastery. 

The Church of Santa Maria also inside the Monastery.