Lisbon, Portugal

Last Sunday we headed to Lisbon, Portugal! The girls did fantastic traveling and after we arrived at our Air BNB apartment and got settled, we headed straight out to tackle the hills and see the sunset from a recommended miradouro (viewpoint) high in the city called Jardim de S. Pedro de Alcântara.

Unfortunately, both Madi and I got sick during our trip. She had a fever off and on basically the whole time and I got a nasty cough/throat illness. However, we still had a lot of fun. The first day we headed on the bus to venture to Oceanário de Lisboa (the aquarium). It's a huge, partially-underground aquarium with lots of fish, sharks, and other sea creatures. Madi enjoyed seeing the fish, but got pretty tired towards the end.

There was a cable car right by the aquarium so we hopped on and got a neat overview of that area of the city. Madi had a blast on it so I'm glad we decided to go ahead and do it while we were in the area.

We ventured back to the apartment walking to relax for a little bit before walking to the Castelo de São Jorge which was just around the corner from our apartment.

We headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner by walking through Praça de D. Pedro IV (Rossio Square) and past a couple other beautiful buildings.

On Tuesday we walked through Praça do Comércio before catching the metro to head to the zoo.

By the time we reached Jardim Zoológico de Lisboa Madi was feeling better and enjoyed the animals. The zoo was a really amazing zoo and even had another cable car thing that Madi and I rode while Jason hung with the sleeping babies.

Wednesday the weather wasn't awesome, but what's a little rain when you live in Stavanger? HA! So we caught a tram and headed to Belém. Jason and Madi visited the Torre de Belém and then we walked over to the Jerónimos Monastery and visited inside.

Then we headed over to the highly recommended Pastéis de Belém for some traditional pastel de nata. Then it was back to the main city for a relaxing afternoon and dinner at our apartment.

Thursday we just spent the day packing and hanging out before our flights home. Our apartment was located near the Alfama district and close to the castle. There was a beautiful balcony near the two elevators that we would take to get down to get into the rest of the city. Here's that spot and the view from it - absolutely amazing!

Overall we really enjoyed Lisbon! The city was beautiful and the people were friendly. Despite feeling a bit under the weather we had a fabulous time!