Portugal 2015 - Lisbon

Lisbon

 

 

Mostly good stuff

 

Absolutely awesome landing approach above the city / bridges. It was so cool. 😃
Airport itself definitely seen better days, nothing awful, but still...
Metro train to the city. Though keep in mind that metro closes relatively early (something like 00:30 if I remember correctly).

Sun was freaking strong (surprise 😃)! I totally forgot about sunscreen on the first day, and quickly got punished for that 😒 Bought it next day at some nearby shop at 2x-3x times normal price

First impressions of Lisbon - a bit unusual, but cool. It seems like a city I can imagine myself living in for some time. And for some reason, I expected it to be incredibly noisy / crowded, but fortunately that wasn't the case. It is kinda cool to just wander around (that's what I mostly do when I travel - wander around without strict plan).

In many places / shops you'll only have 2 choices of beer brands - 'Sagres' and 'Super Bock'. But choice of wine / port is decent of course 😃

Ceramic tiles are everywhere. Many houses are decorated using tiles (outside). Also you see a lot of cables outside.
In city center, traffic lights near crosswalks are essentially 'recommendations'. No matter what light, red or green, people just walk, and police really doesn't care (in contrast with Estonia where they just love to sit in a car somewhere near a crossing and wait for 'customers')

Many small shops which are open till like 1am or 2am. Prices are higher of course, but it is convenient anyway.

'Native' fast-food'ish chain Portugalia - several places around the city, some / most of them are open till late, prices are reasonable, food is good (I survived a choice of seafood just fine). I think I even saw a thermometer showing temperature of a beer tap 😃

AFAIK there was minor confusion with ferry and suburban train tickets, like for some rides you can use same 'daily' public transport card, but for some you can't. Ferries are cool as well.

Oceanarium is cool as expected. Price / coolness ratio is better than in Copenhagen :)

Not so good stuff

•  All kinds of beggars disguised as (paraphrasing) "please help children - buy a pen for 5 eur", "I'm a refugee I've lost my family, give me money for food (while smoking cigarettes at the same time)", or whatever. Not cool.
• Insane amount of (non-natively-looking) selfie-stick sellers
• Not uncommon to find shit on the streets, so always look where you step
• People literally sleeping on the streets

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