Portugal

Now a month ago, I went to Portugal for 8 days. Ofcourse I took a lot of pictures... I love making them!

For the first time in my life, I travelled all alone. It was a bit scary to take my plane all alone, but I met some very nice Portugese people who talked about their country and made me wanna go even more! (if thats even possible, I'm a travel lover, you know ;) ) My idea of the Portugese people, which I already founded out on the plane, is that they are very nice and helpfull people!

At Portugal I spent my first two days at Porto, together with my friend Joke, and with Jessica, an English friend of Joke. The ice broke immediately when she said she also studies History of Arts. The first day we visited the whole city : Casa Da Musica, the churches, plaza's, station, ... and ended the day at the Ribeira, which is the most beautiful place of Porto for me. After eating at the ribeira we saw that there was a graduationparty, so we stayed and watched the band Celtiberia (a folkmetal band from there), who also had a fire breathing act. After Celtiberia there were some fado musicians, which is typical Portugese music.

The second day we went to Porto beach and after some hours we had to take our train to Tomar (some 4 hours away by train). In Tomar we went to a supermarket and made pancakes at the apartment.

The 3rd day we took a bus to Batalha, and we passed Fatima on our way. In Batalha there was a very nice Cathedral and in that Cathedral people were dressed in very nice clothes from the Middle Ages and Renaissance... It gave it a dreamy feeling.

On the 4th day Jessica leaved and Joke and I went to Convento Do Christo, at Tomar. We spent 4 hours at the domain of Convento... it was such a beautiful place over there! Even more beautiful than Batalha for me! After our visit we walked back to the apartment and made some dinner : Spaghetti Pesto with fresh Basilico and Mozarella. After dinner I went back to visit the city of Tomar. I also walked to the bullfighting arena... with my thesis going about bullfighting, I just had to see the arena in Tomar! In the evening, after our cosy daily eveningtalks at the balcony, we watched some 'Las Vegas' episodes before sleeping.

At the 5th day we had to get up early, because our train left at 8 am. We're going to visit Lisbon! At 10am we arrived at Lisbon and first went to Belèm to see the Cathedral, Torre and statue. After visiting that side of the city, we took the train back and went to the Vasco Da Gama Shoppingcenter to eat some KFC and then visited the modern side of Lisbon : Parque de Nacion. Over there we saw the 17 km long bridge. At least we visited the old city with the Arc De Triumph look-a-like gate. The old city is full of small streets, which are so lovely to walk through.

The 6th day I took the train all alone, to visit Coïmbra, the University city of Portugal. Also this city has lots of little cosy streets and their University is amazing! I'd love to follow school there, hehe! I think Coïmbra is one of the cities you really have to see when you visit Portugal!

My last day at Tomar, Joke and I went for a walk to a lake on an hour walk from the apartment. Because it was not so sunny that day, we didn't stay too long at the lake. At the evening we made barbecue on the balcony and had one last cosy evening!

The last day I spent 4 hours on the train back to Porto, all alone again. At Porto I first didn't find the Hostel, but after a long search I finally found it! Two girls arrived right after I arrived, so I spent my day together with them. Henar from Madrid and Marissa from the USA. We did the tour I did the first day at Porto and so I spent my last night at Portugal, sitting at the ribeira with 2 nice girls! Again I had an amazing evening! And I love the sunset at the Ribeira, with the Portoboats in front of it! (see the picture below, which is my favorite of all the pics I made!)