Portugal Trip, Days 1-3

Jared and I were fortunate enough to go on this FABULOUS vacation (I almost said "trip"...but while on our vacation some friends we met informed us trip=with kids; vacation=no kids!!!). Which, I need to thank my wonderful parents who came out from WA and spent 10 days with our BUSY, ACTIVE kids! We are sooooo grateful for them being willing to do that for us! And of course, Mia and Gavin loved spending a week with Grandma and Grandpa!

Back to the vacation...We spent 4 days in Lisbon, Portugal, and then 4 days on Madeira Island. Jared earned the trip b/c he wrote a certain amount of business with Auto-Owners Insurance. Way to go Jared! And boy do they know how to plan a vacation! Everything was so nice, we were at beautiful hotels and ate at some great restaurants, and they took us on lots of wonderful tours. But they also gave us plenty of time on our own to do whatever, or just relax.

We took a ton of pictures, and did a lot, so I'm breaking this up and posting about a day or two at a time. *Warning: this will probably be VERY long, and VERY boring to most of you!

So day ONE was a FULL days worth of traveling. I mean over 24 hours! YUCK! We left our house Friday EARLY (we were up at 4:30 am!) and arrived in Lisbon Saturday morning (and just like that, we're on to day TWO). We were taken to the hotel, but couldn't check in until noon. So we enjoyed a yummy breakfast at the hotel and then took a walk around Lisbon. It was a a beautiful day and tired as we were, it was nice to not be sitting on a plane!

Once we were able to check in we made sure our bags had made it into our room and then checked out the hotel "accommodations." Let's just say we weren't disappointed!

This is the terrace at our hotel where we could eat breakfast every morning:

I wish I would have taken more pictures of our hotels (both of them) b/c I don't think we'll stay somewhere like that for a looooong time. Well, not on our dime, at least :) But you can click here to see a few pics of both places, as well as some great pictures of some of the things we saw.

I tried really hard to stay awake so I could "adjust" to the 7 hour loss we were experiencing, but I ended up taking a 2 1/2 or 3 hour nap! Oops! We payed for that later on! Then it was time to get ready for our Welcome Dinner at the hotel. This was our first chance to get to meet a lot of people (there were 75 couples on this trip; we didn't know anyone going into it, but met a lot of great people!) and stuff ourselves.

After dinner, Jared and I changed, then hopped on the subway to head downtown. Thankfully there was a really nice girl who helped us along our first time. Downtown Lisbon is full of beautiful bldgs. and architecture and it was especially beautiful at night, all lit up.

Of course, we had to stop by the Hard Rock Cafe. We stepped inside, but it was CRAZY busy, so we didn't stay long. Just long enough for Jared to find out the rumor that they showed American football games was just that...a rumor!

I don't know what most these buildings I took pictures of are, but they looked cool :)

We had no problem falling asleep that night, but between 3 and 5 am, we were both WIDE AWAKE!!!! Aaagh. We were both finally able to fall asleep, but slept through our wake-up call and almost missed our tour on Sunday morning!

DAY 3 - Sintra Tour

Sintra is the one place everyone said you can't miss b/c it's so beautiful, etc...Well, we almost did! The buses left at 9 am, and Jared, miraculously woke up at 8:40!!! PANIC!!! I can't believe we got ready so fast...I even showered! But, I did miss breakfast! I am soooo glad we didn't sleep in though. Sintra is a quaint little town out in the country where one of the kings decided to build a palace (or 2, or 3). It was really beautiful. I wish my pictures did it justice, but they will have to do!

Up on the top of the hill you can see the remains of an old fortress.

Jared and Jamie outside the "National Palace" (I think?). This was one of the palaces we saw in Sintra. We walked through this one on our own.

This entire room was covered, floor to ceiling, in tile. I LOVED it!

Sintra is all hills and very fun to explore. You could easily get lost in these side streets.

Next, we went to the top of the mountain to see the Royal Pena Palace. Talk about a scary bus ride! The streets are extremely narrow, and we're in this big ol' bus (I would HATE to be a bus driver there!) and the streets are steep and windy -I felt like we were in San Fransisco.

We could only make it so far though, and then they put us on this trolley to go the rest of the way. Are they CRAZY?!

The Royal Pena Palace

One of the views from the palace

Our bus took us the "scenic" way back to Lisbon, along the coastline. It was beautiful! On the way back we stopped at Roca Cape, the most western part of continental Europe. Not much there, but it was pretty, and a nice place for a picture.

That evening for dinner, we were bused down by the river in Lisbon where there was just restaurant after restaurant after restaurant and we were on our own to choose where to eat. Almost all the restaurants there have a LOT of seafood to offer, and I don't really do seafood, so we found an Argentine meat place that was pretty good. The service, however...not so great. Let's just say the Portuguese like to take their time while eating, so everything is very SLOW. If you are already starving when you arrive at a restaurant, you are in trouble, b/c it usually took at least 30 mins. from the time we sat until we even ordered our food!

Jared and Jamie by the river in Lisbon