Lisbon!

Barcelona considers the 1992 Olympics to be the turning point for the city, Bilbao attributes its Renaissance to the 1999 construction of the Guggenheim, and Lisbon points to its 1755 earthquake as the start of its "modernization." It's no surprise then, that the city feels infinitely older than Barca — the narrow, cobblestoned streets snake their way up the city's hills, and if you don't feel like walking, there's always the rickety old trams.

We only had 36 hours or so in Portugal's capital city, but we really did get to see everything.

After arriving on Friday evening, not long after we left Barcelona (strangely, the two countries are in different time zones), we set out to find food (Portuguese favorites include meat, cod and potatoes) and check out the nightlife. Unlike Barcelona, Lisbon seems to have very few tourists — particularly not English speaking ones — so we felt like we were getting a much more authentic and local feel. The bars of Lisbon are all concentrated in Bairro Alto, one of the city's many neighborhoods. Lisboans fill the streets and mingle — all drinks are served in plastic cups, and you're encouraged to wander. We managed to find a beautiful little bar with pretty paintings all over the walls, where Portuguese guitar music was being played. We could understand some Portuguese in writing, but spoken — forget about it. The accent is completely different than Spanish, with some Arabic undertones. We were warned not to speak Spanish while in Lisbon. Apparently, they find it offensive, and prefer trying to decipher our English.

On Saturday we took the historic tram #28 up the hills of Graça to the feira ladro (flea market, literally translated to mean "thieves' market." For probably 15 blocks, every inch of ground space was covered, with everything from scarves and jewelery to phone chargers and broken Barbie dolls.

We explored the market for a while, before setting off to find the Castelo São Jorge. For a castle, it was shockingly hard to find. We walked up and down hills and stairs before finally encountering the 11th-century structure. The castle itself was pretty standard as far as Moorish fortresses go, but the views were absolutely incredible.

On Sunday we took tram #15 to Belém, an outer district of the city. This tram was a little more modern and looked like a bus. It was a little less obvious as to how to pay, and so we unintentionally rode the tram for free (this is not the first time something along these lines has happened to me).

Our first stop was Cafe Pastéis de Belém, a bakery famous since it opened in 1837. The Portuguese have as many pastelerias as Spain has tapas bars, and they take great pride in their unique creations. Prior to this trip, my only exposure to anything Portuguese had been Silver Star, the bakery in Providence, so this was a learning experience. Plus, since we really couldn't communicate all that easily, we did a lot of pointing and blind tasting. I think we did ok.

In Belém, we checked out the famous monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos), the modern culture center/museum (where we saw sculptures made entirely of plastic silverware) and the Monument to the Discoverers. A couple of our friends from the Bay Area had compared Lisbon to San Francisco — there's a bridge almost identical to the Golden Gate, the streets are hilly and filled with trams, and like San Fran, the weather is a bit misty and unpredictable. Sunday was sunny with a side of occasional drizzle. We didn't let that hamper our exploration too much though.