Fresh and Flat: The Lies We Were Told

A Weeklong Adventure in Lisbon

So we’re back on the journey. More memories, another conversation. This time the subject is Lisbon.

Let me start by saying Lisbon is beautiful. It is also hilly. Very hilly. These two facts are important because somewhere during the planning of this birthday trip, my bestie and I decided this would be a restful vacation. We would sleep in. We wouldn’t overbook ourselves. We certainly wouldn’t do anything strenuous.

THOSE WERE LIES.

Let me explain our planning process. We pick a place, secure accommodations and flights, and then proceed to earmark Airbnb Experiences we might want to try. Usually we’re looking for some combination of cultural, celebratory, especially for birthday trips, and anything that satisfies our nerdy tendencies. For this trip, learning that Lisbon is home to the world’s oldest operating bookstore helped move it to the top of our travel list.

Some trips ago, we also decided that we should always start with a walking tour. It helps us get the lay of the land.

Unfortunately, we underestimated Lisbon and overestimated our abilities.

Yes, the ride from the airport to our hotel involved the shuttle driver maneuvering up and down inclined streets, but apparently my brain did not process this information and preemptively signal to my body: You’re next, and this may not be what we want to do.

Not only did we book a walking tour for the day we landed, we proceeded to stupidly book a six-hour walking tour for another day and THREE different walking tours a day later.

Why do I classify this as stupidity, you ask?

Back to the title.

The six-hour walking tour began at a viewpoint supposedly a 15-minute walk from our hotel. What we did not know was that this particular 15-minute walk involved hills, cobblestones, stairs on a hill and aggressive sunshine beating down our backs.

When people tell you Lisbon is hilly, I don’t think you can truly fathom what they mean. At least we didn’t.

We arrived at the meeting point and began our trek across the city as temperatures crept toward 90°F. At certain points along the tour, our guide would reassure us that the next stop would be closer to the water or somewhere with shade trees and would therefore be “fresh.”

Apparently fresh is synonymous with cooler.

Then there was flat.

Guides throughout the week would look at our faces, usually after we had just climbed what felt like an arduous hill, and reassure us that we were approaching the flat part of the tour.

We quickly discovered that Lisbon and I have very different understandings of the word flat.

Flat did not mean flat.

Flat meant the hill was less steep.

This became a recurring theme.

We did a portrait art tour that took us through some of Lisbon’s older neighborhoods while our guide photographed us and shared stories about the city along the way. The sights were awesome. Getting to them? Up winding hills and narrow cobblestone streets, while repeatedly being assured, “This is the last one. Our next stop will be flat.”

News flash: still a hill.

And just when we thought Lisbon’s hills were bad, the journey to Pena Palace said, hold my beer.

The “10-minute” walk from the parking lot to the palace park entrance felt like a winding incline of approximately 3,000 miles, accompanied by yet another guide assuring us it was “just a little further” and would soon be flat.

At this point, we knew better.

So besides becoming impromptu mountain climbers, here’s the rest of the Lisbon experience.

There’s something about the Mediterranean-influenced lifestyle that needs to be bottled and sold. Bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, olives and all of the wine. Add in Lisbon’s amazing viewpoints and its mix of old and modern, and I started to understand the appeal pretty quickly.

And then there were the books.

The world’s oldest operating bookstore was one of the reasons Lisbon moved to the top of our travel list. Books, books and more books. How could one not be happy?

Depends on whether one had invented an entirely different bookstore in her head.

For some reason, I was expecting multiple floors with views and books everywhere. Maybe something similar to the four-story Zara store, except, you know, books. Instead, Livraria Bertrand is one floor divided into different rooms.

Did that stop us from going three times?

Absolutely not.

My bestie even managed to find a Portuguese edition of her favorite book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which made the repeated visits worth it.

We did a wine tour in Arrábida, which included visits to a tile factory and two wineries for tastings. Maybe hand-painting tiles or becoming a wine labeler is the life I need. Definitely unlocked a new disappointment for my bestie.

I typically prefer white wines to red, but somehow in Portugal even the reds, with the right accompaniments, were the way to go. Toasts, sheep’s milk cheese and carrot marmalade apparently have the ability to make me reconsider things.

In terms of food, you definitely couldn’t go wrong with the seafood. Grilled shrimp and sea bass became recurring favorites.

The sweets, however, were less successful for me. I tried a Pastel de Belém, pastel de nata and queijada, but none of the custardy, eggy treats made my must-have list. I also tried the chocolate cup served with ginjinha, and that was a no for me too. This is definitely a me thing. I don’t particularly like custard-filled desserts to begin with, and after a while the richness was a little overwhelming.

Portugal, I respect your commitment to custard and mixing fruit with chocolate. I simply cannot join you.

For one of our nights out, instead of finding a typical bar, we went to a Fado performance. Two singers, one man and one woman, performed accompanied by two guitarists, one playing the traditional Portuguese guitar. It was exactly the kind of experience we look for when planning these trips and, for us, probably better than the socializing required when sitting in a bar.

Our cultural ambitions were similarly enthusiastic, if occasionally poorly scheduled.

On the day we somehow thought three different walking tours was a reasonable idea, we checked out Lisbon’s street art scene. The art was great, but after what seemed like several hours of walking, I learned something about myself: my creative, explorative side apparently shuts down after about an hour. There is a limit to how long I can thoughtfully contemplate art while trekking uphill on cobblestones.

The next day, we took a seemingly unrelated tour, only to discover that it covered some of the same neighborhoods and even some of the same art we had just seen.

So, another lesson learned: read the tour descriptions carefully. Different titles do not necessarily mean different Lisbon.

Was Lisbon worth it? Yes.

Will my legs recover? Jury’s still out.

Évora came at the end of the trip and was decidedly more like the vibe we had initially been planning. Maybe a chapel of bones is what one needs to maintain a chill travel atmosphere.

It was still hot. It was still hilly. But the pace was noticeably more leisurely. We ended up having a private tour, which definitely contributed to the experience. There was no rushing to keep up with a group or spending six hours trekking across a city. We could actually stop, look around and take things in.

Apparently this is what we meant when we said we were going to relax.

For reference, this was the itinerary we had created for our supposedly restful birthday vacation:

Day 1: Tuk-tuk tour and calligraphy workshop
Day 2: Six-hour “Lisbon Like a Local” walking tour and Fado performance
Day 3: Arrábida wine tour
Day 4: Portrait walking tour, street-art walking tour and half-day trip to Sintra
Day 5: Unguided exploration followed by a guided walking tour of Lisbon’s “secrets” involving music, art and flavors
Day 6: Évora and Monsaraz