We are excited to be going to the capital of Portugal for three reasons.

1. We are staying in the number 1 rated hostel IN THE WORLD (Travellers House)

2. We heard the best piri piri chicken is somewhere in this city.

3. The world famous custard (portugese) tarts were born here in a suburb called Belem.

Very good reasons to go to a city and those are the reasons we enjoyed it so much! It's our last few days with Rawan though and are a little sad that she is leaving and going back to Sydney.

Travellers house was right on the main pedestrian street.. Rua Augusta. We look out our window and have amazing views of the main archway to Lisbon. The hostel is beautiful and very inviting. Feels like home and could stay here forever! First thing we do is ask about the piri piri chicken and head out to try some. sooooooo good!

We sign up for a day tour the next day which takes us to Sintra… a little place an hour out of Lisbon with a palace, and a castle on the hill tops. Nuno is our tour guide…. he is a little man with 70's haircut and full moustache. He wears tight pants that don't cover his ankle and makes us laugh the whole time. He introduces us to Pena Palace which was commissioned by an eccentric King as his Summer retreat. Each room has a different theme and is apparently very rich, but me and Troy are too cheap to pay the entrance fee. We only pay to visit the gardens which were lovely. Also on the tour were a couple from the US (Danielle and Blake), an Irish girl and another girl from the US. We all climbed through the forest to the highest point for 360 views of Sintra and the beautiful palace.

That night, we also did a night tour, showing us the main sights and also giving us a taste of the famous belem custard tarts. Our guide is Nuno again…. he tells us about driving in Lisbon "U see… when you drive in Lisbon, you need to improvise….. RED LIGHT… i didn't see it. RED LIGHT… i didn't see that one either or this one….". Oh god!

And if we weren't tired enough from our full day, we joined the pub crawl afterwards and danced until 5am in Bairro Alto. Huge day!

After a bit of Zara and H&M shopping, Troy and I head to Porto and Rawan to Madrid and then home.

After 3 days we are back, and stay at another hostel a little out of the city centre in Lapa, which is also lovely. Nice and clean and homely. The hostels in Lisbon are great! I am happy to Skype with mum and tell her what we have been up to. We go walk abouts and catch the 28 tram to Alfama to see the castle, Castelo de Sao Jorge… but again too cheap to go in. Instead we walk around Alfama and have an awful canned chicken sandwich outside on a street bench…. but destroy the taste with Ben and Jerry's strawberry cheesecake ice cream. mmmmmm.

Happy with our stay(s) is Lisbon and Portugal… we move on to Madrid!