Hello and welcome to Part 2 of the AAA New Years spectacular! This week’s post covers the second half of the Dobbins family trip to Portugal. Before we get there, I have some exciting news that I would like to share.
Introducing the first surprise! The AAA-Blogstore! While stranded in Philadelphia for a night on my way home from Barcelona (thanks American Airlines) I finally worked up the motivation to build out a redbubble store. I encourage you all to check it out because selfishly I think it will be really fun to have my own brand I am really proud of some of the designs.
The AAA store features everything from fun shirts and stickers with my face on them to wall art that has been created from pictures I took while on my travels. In the name of Tikkun Olam I will be donating a portion of all proceeds to charity at the end of the year and I will include the charity and the donated amount in a later newsletter.
This is the first release of the store so if you have suggestions of things to change or add please let me know.
The second surprise is a message from our inaugural sponsor.
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Now let’s get to today’s piece :)
Lisbon, Portugal - The City of 7 Hills - is one of the oldest cities in the world and is the second oldest European capital behind Athens, Greece ( you lika the lamb?).
Lisbon reminds me a lot of San Francisco. The city is known for its winding and hilly roads and it’s charming pastel and painted tile buildings. Lisbon even has it’s own golden gate style suspension bridge for reasons that will become clear in the next paragraph.
Lisbon sits at the mouth of the Tagus river, a stone’s throw away from the Atlantic Ocean, and just a few weeks march from the Straight of Gibraltar. Additionally, Lisbon is in close proximity to the Lower Tagus Valley Fault Line. This is a fault line that is not very well understand, yet produced one of the deadliest earthquakes in recorded human history in 1755.
The city was likely founded between 1200 and 800 BCE by local tribes as a trading post. Given it’s strategic position, Lisbon was ruled by a number of regional powers throughout history including the Visigoths, the Romans, and the Moors. In 1255 it officially became the capital of Portugal - replacing Coimbra.
The city ‘s architecture is greatly influenced by it’s history and multiple conquerors - most recently the Dobbins family.
My Travels in Lisbon
My favorite part about being in Lisbon was the architecture and pretty buildings. The various pastel or beautiful tile buildings lining the streets made me feel like I was looking at San Francisco’s Painted Ladies as we charged up and down hills looking for restaurants or passible bathrooms.
After our train from Lagos dropped us at the train station we took a short taxi ride to our Airbnb in the Barrio Alto neighbor not too far from the popular Principe Real. After lugging our bags up to our room we made the short walk to Timeout Market to eat some delicious food and cookies (food not pictured because we were really hungry). After dinner and cookies we played some family Uno and went to bed.
Our first full day in Lisbon featured a tour with Paolo Scheffer - a local professor of Jewish Studies and the ONLY licensed Jewish history tour guide in Lisbon. For anyone visiting Lisbon I highly recommend booking a tour with him because Lisbon has a surprising amount of Jewish history.
The history of the Jewish Diaspora in Europe led to some fun stories that I wont plagiarize from Paolo but most of tour focused on the decade of 1490-1540. See in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue the inquisition began in Spain and all Spanish Jews were faced with a choice - leave or die.
Fearing for their lives, some 50,000-150,000 Jews fled Spain for neighboring Portugal. The next 50ish years brought a period of short lived prosperity for Sephardic Jews. Many of those who fled Spain were able to integrate well into Portuguese society and some even rose to prominent position in the Portuguese royal court.
Unfortunately, this new foundation of hope all came crashing down in 1536 when Portugal launched it’s own inquisition. This led all Jews who had settled in Portugal with a similar but slightly modified choice - convert or die.
This decision brought about the forcible conversion of roughly 70,000 Jews to “New Christians”. The effects of this decision have resulted in Portugal having the largest amount of “Cryptic Jews” in the world.
Cryptic Jews are those who have prominent Jewish ancestry, genetic features or have remnants of Judaism in their current religion. It is estimated that 20-25% of Portuguese people today are Cryptic Jews
After finishing our tour with Paolo we took a quick rest before starting a walking food tour with Rodrigo through ToursByLocals. Rodrigo took us around Lisbon’s historic district and we soon discovered that Lisbon isn’t really known for its food. Personal favorites from the food tour include: Pastel De Nata ( Portuguese Crème Brulee) and Ginjinha (pronounced Gin-Gin-Ha which is sweet cherry liqueur).
Aside from the mid food, we had a nice time walking around hearing about life growing up in Lisbon. In addition to having great hair, Rodrigo has the ability to pet anyone’s dog in public without the owner getting upset - 9.3/10 tour guide.
Our second full day in Lisbon featured a full day tour of Sintra - which is a region just outside Lisbon proper. Sintra was the Hampton’s for the Portuguese Monarchy and ultra wealthy. It is essentially just the side of a mountain that features of plethora of Castles and Estates overlooking both Lisbon and the beach at Cascais!
Our tour began at the Quinta da Regaleira Palace which boasts a gorgeous and expansive garden. The garden features a number of scenic overlooks of the Palace and the famous Initiation well - not to be confused with the infinite well.
The Well features a cool underground tunnel which leads to a hidden waterfall (not pictured). The color of the water in the above pictures is due to a unique form of algae that is native to the region and is not matcha. Surprisingly no one dropped their phone in the water or down the well while we were touring.
After we finished up at the gardens we stopped for lunch and some knick knack shopping in downtown Sintra before pressing on to the famous Pena Palace.
The Pena Palace was originally built in 1493 and was just a small chapel known as the Pena Chapel. Many monarchs were fond of the chapel and would travel their to fulfill “sacred vows”. Glossing over what I’m sure is a euphemism for something sexual, the Chapel became run down over the years and eventually collapsed during the 1755 earthquake.
In 1838 prince Ferdinand purchased the Chapel and much of the surrounding land in order to build the Palace that we can see today… to use as his summer home… The inside of the palace is extremely ornate with each room having a separate theme. The rooms themselves are filled with expertly crafted furniture, priceless artifacts and stunning art pieces which were likely acquired as gifts from other monarchs.
The palace features a refurbished chapel where Ferdinand was eventually laid to rest. Overall, Sintra and the Pena Palace were my favorite part of Lisbon - 9.9/10 would recommend.
As I mentioned in the Lagos newsletter, Portugal is famous for Azulejo (ornate tile). Azulejo caught my eye everywhere we went in Portugal and the 8 photos above are pictures I took from various rooms in the Pena Palace. Each tile was handmade so though appearing similar, no tile is exactly alike.
These below pictures I just thought were fun. All hail our lord and savior Christ(iano).
Thanks again for tuning in for another great edition of AAA and I look forward to seeing you again in 1-2 weeks :).
You're right, Lisbon also reminds me of San Francisco. Congrats on the redbubble store and the sponsor.