Buga: 19.09.2020
Where once in Lisbon in Bairro Alto the party was in full swing all night long, the police now patrol from 12:00 AM onwards to enforce possible corona violations. However, they rarely find any. Based on our observations, all Portuguese people actually behave very exemplary on this matter. Much better than we were used to in Germany. Everyone pays meticulous attention to wearing masks indoors, and even outside, over 20% still wear a mask 😷.
Sometimes you have to adapt to the situation, and therefore our conclusion was to organize our evening drink in advance 😂. The advantage of this is that you go to bed earlier and therefore have more time for sightseeing 💪...
So, for our second day in Lisbon, we planned to visit the alternative artist and street food district 'LX Factory', take a photo stop at the picturesque 25th of April Bridge and the Christ the King statue, as well as take a trip to the neighborhood of Belem, which is located slightly outside the city center. First, we headed towards the Atlantic Ocean along the Tagus River. We planned to cover the 5 km distance with the electric scooters available everywhere. After quickly installing the app and registering, we were finally able to get started. It must be noted: this is a really good addition to the other means of transportation and with speeds of up to 25 km/h, you can get around quite quickly 😊.
The LX Factory, located directly under the large bridge, used to be a textile factory and is now home to numerous artists, bars, restaurants, and co-working spaces. It is definitely worth a visit because it offers a completely different concept. Unfortunately, after a futile walk through the office complexes, we had to realize that the rooftop bar, which looked very nice, has probably fallen victim to the corona situation and no longer exists. So, we had to find another place for our planned photo shoot in San Francisco (25th of April Bridge) and Rio de Janeiro (Christ the King statue). But that was no problem right by the river 😉.
So, our tour towards Belem could continue. On-site, you can find several historical buildings, some of which are quite impressive. In particular, the Monument to the Discoveries (Padrão dos Descobrimentos) and the famous Belém Tower stand out and are recommended as worth seeing even by us uneducated philistines👍. With this, our mandatory program for Lisbon was already completed, and we could once again indulge in the culinary temptations. Initially, we discovered a stylish bar right by the river where we wanted to enjoy a delicious Sangria in the beautiful evening sun. Unfortunately, they only served Sangria in 2-liter carafes, which made our return trip with the electric scooters a bit more difficult, or accelerated it 🙈. After all, 2 liters of Sangria are also a good motivator 🤪.
When we finally left Lisbon the next morning, this beautiful, old city, reminiscent of some slightly crumbling Eastern European capitals, had no choice but to burst into tears. But we still took advantage of a short break in the rain to complete our Lisbon mission 100% and visited Christ the King on the other side of the river. So, after striking some blasphemous poses in front of the giant statue, we could actually claim that we had visited all the highlights of Lisbon.
Now we are approaching the Algarve with big steps...