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For our second day in Lisbon, we headed to Belém, a famous neighborhood in western Lisbon, on the banks of the Tagus River. We started our day at Belém Tower (below), a 16th Century fortress that is known as a ceremonial gateway to the city. Built in the Manueline style, the tower was built to protect the Lisbon Harbor and is now an icon of the city itself. Climbing to the top of the tower provides a beautiful view of the city.
From the tower, we walked to the nearby discovery monument (top) that celebrates the Portuguese Age of Discoveries during the 15th and 16th centuries. The monument includes sculptures of famous navigators including Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama, and St. Francis Xavier among many others.
After the tower, we headed to the most famous place in Belém, Pasteies de Belém, to try the world-famous pastry (left). We became obsessed with Pasteies while in Portugal and the ones in Belém were definitely the best that we tried.
Nourished, we headed to Jeronimo’s Monastery (right), the first of many religious buildings we visited on this trip and one of the most impressive. Like the tower, the monastery was built in the Manueline style in the early 16th century. I was surprised to learn that the tomb of Vasco da Gama (and that of the two kings that he served) is in the nave of the church for visitors to come and pay their respects. The architecture of the monastery was a lot to take in with all the ornate columns and arches.
After our time exploring Belém we decided to try a self-driving tour of Lisbon. We had seen these little Spinach tour cars around the city and we were curious to try it out for ourselves. They offer several different tours of Lisbon and we chose to tour Alfama, the oldest part of the city because that is where our Airbnb was but we hadn’t spent more time over there except to sleep.
The streets of Lisbon are narrow and mostly cobblestone so it is not a city I would want to have to drive in, but this tour gave us a little taste. It was fun to zip around in our little electric car while the car gave us directions and told us some history of the city. Of course, in such a silly vehicle, you get a lot of funny looks, but we enjoyed our tour and we wished we had chosen the longer tour that also went out to Belém. If you are interested in trying a self-driving tour of Lisbon, I recommend Spinach Tours on Viator!
We ended our second day in Lisbon with what has to be the restaurant highlight of the trip. Ponto Final is a restaurant on the opposite side of the Tagus River from Lisbon that was featured on Netflix’s food travel show, Somebody Feed Phil, and is incredibly popular. I made reservations as soon as our plans for this trip were finalized, but the wait without a reservation can be up to two hours. The seafood dishes were delicious but the location is the star of this restaurant and being able to watch the sunset over the bridge was magical. It was probably one of the best views I’ve experienced from any restaurant in my life and I highly recommend a stop if you’re in Lisbon, but take the ferry, traffic getting across the bridge can take a long time! Reservations can be made in advance by emailing pontofinalrest@gmail.com.
Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to stop back next week as I recap our day in Sintra! To read more about this trip, check out Cruising the Atlantic to Portugal and Spain trip report. To read about some of our previous trips, visit my Trips Page. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page and follow me on Instagram! For my list of gadgets to make your travels easier, click here. To see inside my camera bag, check out my updated Gear Page.
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