My humble suggestions on what to do in Lisbon

Having lived in many countries and being lucky enough to have quite a few foreign friends, I've been frequently asked for advice on what to do in my hometown. I've had a standard e-mail that I typically forward to my friends for a while, but it seemed to be about time for me to write a blog post about my favourite city in the entire world: Lisbon. So here it goes! Enjoy!

Belém

• What? Old neighborhood by the river, full of historical monuments, a few good museums, and the best pastry in town
• Duration? 1 afternoon
   
• What to do?
  • Walk by: Torre de Belém, CCB, Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, Padrão dos Descobrimentos
  • Pick one to visit: probably Torre de Belém
  • If you like art: great modern art exposition inside CCB
  • Eat: Pastel de Belém (the most famous Pastel de Nata – a traditional sweet pastry – in Portugal)

Baixa & Praça do Comércio & Alfama & Castelo de São Jorge

• What? Centre of Lisbon. Baixa is downtown, Castelo de São Jorge is the Lisbon Castle and Alfama the neighborhood surrounding it. Giving you some context, in 1755 there was a massive earthquake in Lisbon, followed by a massive fire and a tsunami that pretty much destroyed downtown Lisbon. The only parts that resisted were the neighborhoods around the castle (in a hill). Baixa was then totally reconstructed and was rebuilt into a pretty architecture and urbanism organization. Alfama remained chaotic, with tiny little streets, disorganized urbanism and amazing views.
• Duration? 1 day
   
• What to do?
  • Take good walking shoes
  • Walk and shop around: Rossio, Rua Augusta and the streets parallel to it, towards Praça do Comércio. Go up the arch in the end of Rua Augusta (Arco da Rua Augusta) to get a cool panoramic view of that area. Avoid all the touristy restaurant in Baixa. Portuguese food is much better (and can be much cheaper than that). If you're hungry there, go to Bastardo, a cool restaurant in Rossio.
  • Eventually take Elevador de Santa Justa, a metallic lift from where you have nice views. I would not go up, but just the monument instead. There are cooler places to get a panoramic view.
  • Take the electric yellow tram (Eléctrico 28) up the hill towards the castle
1. Leave the tram by Sé de Lisboa, Lisbon's oldest cathedral (an old mosque converted into a cathedral after the city was conquered from the Arabs)
2. Walk towards a few viewpoints and stop for a few pictures (Miradouro das Portas do Sol)
3. Walk up to the castle (Castelo de São Jorge) and get a ticket to get inside the castle walls. The view from there is breathtaking!
4. All that neighborhood around Sé and Castelo is called Alfama. It has tiny streets (Arabic influence), and many restaurants with typical food and people singing Fado (Portuguese traditional music). Avoid the tourist traps.
5. Grab a drink at Memmo Alfama (a cool rooftop bar in a trendy hotel over there)
6. (If you're not tired yet, walk towards Graça, another neighborhood close to the Castle, where you have another 2 or 3 really cool viewpoints (Miradouro da Graça, Miradouro de Nossa Senhora do Monte, etc.)

Príncipe Real & Bairro Alto & Chiado & Cais do Sodré

• What? The place to be. Chiado and Príncipe Real are currently the two coolest and trendiest neighborhoods in town. It's the place for shopping, eating at a fancy restaurant, and seeing the views. Bairro Alto is a tiny typical neighborhood, packed with little bars and restaurants. It's where all the foreign students live so it's known for lots of partying and crowded streets in the evening.
• Duration? lunch + 1 afternoon + dinner
• What to do?
• Start at Príncipe Real: stop at any garden and check all the corners for cute streets and good views
• Go inside one or two modern alternative department stores, namely Embaixada do Príncipe Real. My favourite bikini brand ever (Latitid) has a store there
• Keep walking around for Príncipe Real for cool stores, restaurants and bars
• Start walking down and stop at a viewpoint called Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara
• Go down to Chiado by walking the streets of Bairro Alto (tiny streets, in June probably adorned with colorful tapes and Summer decoration, with many restaurants and alternative shops)
• Check all the main streets in Chiado: Rua Garrett, Rua do Carmo, Largo do Carmo, and all the other streets surrounding the area
• As the evening approaches, walk to Cais do Sodré, a neighborhood that used to be quite dodgy and that is now packed with cool restaurants, a nice food court (Mercado da Ribeira) and many, many bars
• Pick one of the restaurants for dinner there

Cascais & Sintra

• What? Romantic trip to a wealthy village 20/30 minutes away from Lisbon, by the sea (Cascais) and to a lovely hilly place packed with palaces and old houses (Sintra)
• Duration? 1 day (worth renting a car)
• What to do?
• Drive to Cascais, check the city centre, and take the street by the sea to get to Guincho (a lovely beach). Before Guincho, the neighborhood around Marina is worth a stop. There are plenty of monuments and museums in the area. Once in Guincho, and in case you are interested, eat at one of the amazing fish restaurants.
• Keep driving west, towards Sintra, through a hilly road, surrounded by trees and bushes
• Visit one or two palaces. I would definitely recommend Palácio da Pena and Quinta da Regaleira. If I am not wrong, it is possible to buy passes for more than one palace.
• Go for a hike, if you are in the mood.
• Also in Sintra, try 2 other famous pastries: travesseiro de Sintra & queijada de Sintra. A good place to eat them is Piriquita.

This post could not close without a few tips on FOOD:

• Portuguese food: Solar dos Presuntos (Restauradores), Taberna da Rua das Flores (Chiado), Ramiro (Av. Almirante Reis), Peixola (Cais do Sodré), Água pela Barba (Bica), Sea me (Chiado)
• Trendy places: Jncquoi (Av. da Liberdade), Minibar (Chiado), Cevicheria (Príncipe Real), O Asiático (Bairro Alto), Bairro do Avillez (Chiado), Cantinho do Avillez (Chiado), Alma (Príncipe Real), Tapisco (Príncipe Real), Bistro 100 Maneiras (Chiado)
• Japanese Food: Yakuza First Floor (Príncipe Real/ Rato), Confraria (Cais do Sodré), Kanazawa (Restelo), Hikidashi (Campo de Ourique)
• Mexican Food: Cascabel (El Corte Ingles), Pistola y Corazon (Cais do Sodré)
• Food markets: Mercado de Campo de Ourique (Campo de Ourique), Mercado da Ribeira (Cais do Sodré)
• Icecream: Davvero (Cais do Sodré, Santos, Belém)
• Bars: Try bar hoping in Cais do Sodré (namely a pink street that we call Rua Cor de Rosa, although that's not the proper name of the street). For signature cocktails, check out Toca da Raposa (Chiado)
• Rooftops: Topo (Martim Moniz), Topo (Chiado), Topo (Belém),  Hotel do Bairro Alto (Chiado), Hotel Tivoli (Avenida da Liberdade), Hotel Mundial (Martim Moniz)
• Clubbing: Lux (Santa Apolónia)
• Brunch: Amélia (Campo de Ourique), Comoba Lisboa (Cais do Sodré), Heim Café (Santos), Dear Breakfast (Cais do Sodré), Hello, Kristof (Cais do Sodré), Fauna e Flora (Santos), Chèrie Paloma (Santos)

Note 1: All the tips below should be complemented by a tour guide or some google searches. These are just guidelines on what not to miss

Note 2: Taking a tour bus in the beginning of the trip may be a good idea in order to get an overall view of the city before checking a few neighborhoods in further detail

Wedding video

Looking back to the year that is coming to an end (and what an year!), it is quite easy to pick my favorite day.

Here's a sneak peak of the twenty-second-of-July.

Woman in business

When you husband says out loud that he is ready to support you as a woman in business...

Throughout last year, Gorda cooperated with INSEAD in what concerns to dating a woman with ambitions. This article shows part of it.

#luckyme
#insead moments
#womaninbusiness

Our dear Bocas

Oh Bocas, you've been great to us! 

Bocas del Toro is an archipelago up in the North of Panama, very close to Costa Rica. It is a beach, surf and diving paradise, and we were super happy here.

We flew early in the morning from Panama City on the 5th of August. The "airport" in Bocas is 5 minutes away from the Bocas "town". We stayed in a lodge literally over the sea, Hotel Bocas del Toro, and very close to the nicest restaurants and bars. Be aware that nice restaurants and bars means fun places with good food and drinks, and not fancy shmancy stuff. In Bocas, there's no such thing. This is a cool place for laid back people, either locals or foreigners who decided to leave their lives behind and open a small business, surf a lot, and probably smoke a lot of weed.

Our hotel was quite old and modest but cute. We got a room with sea view and a bottle of champagne for free, just for being lovebirds in our honeymoon.

First things first, right? So, as soon as we arrived in Bocas, we went to a surfboard rental store and rented a board and a pair of flippers so that gorda could be happy. We learnt that the spot to surf was Bluff Beach and its surroundings so we put our swimsuits on and headed there. What a beautiful place!

The waves were indeed incredible there, and gorda surfed for about 2.5 hours, while I took some pictures, worked out, read and slept. I was cool to gain some credits for taking Gorda quite some good pictures of him surfing during our honeymoon. Not I can demand some more massages!

We had a late lunch at Bluff Beach Lodge, and then went for a nice walk on the endless deserted beaches. We didn't go back to Bocas until 5:30 pm. There, we finally checked in (Gorda allowed us to do so after some good waves), and rested for a bit before having a very good dinner at Bocart.

All restaurants in Bocas are laid back and cool. Bocart was no exception. We shared marvelous appetizers there. Heads up to the lobster salad and to the Vietnamese nems.

The next two days were truly unforgettable. On Sunday, we woke up early as Gorda fell asleep before 10 pm the day before. I did my usual morning workout, we had a decent and healthy breakfast, and then rented some bikes. The bike tour between Bocas Town and Playa Bluff is absolutely stunning. You go through the village and then immerse in a road between the jungle, but by the sea. You pass through Pika Point (Paunch Beach), and through many good waves. After about 10 km, some of them quite rocky and hilly, you arrive in Playa Bluff. A-w-e-s-o-m-e! The views are breathtaking and the sound of the forest mixed with the sound of the waves is hard to describe.

Unfortunately for Gorda, the waves were not as good as on Saturday, so we biked back to Paki Point, where we had a yummy early lunch: a pesto chicken salad for me, two burritos for him. Around 2 pm, we were back in town, and took a boat taxi to Carenero Island (3-min away from our hotel in Bocas del Toro). Carenero Island is absolutely gorgeous two, but totally different from Bluff. The sand was whiter, the sea was more turquoise, and even the vegetation was different: more beachy and less jungly. We walked through the coast for about 45 minutes, until we found a beautiful deserted beach just for us. We swam, Gorda took a nap and I read in the shade. What a good afternoon! What an amazing day!

To finish the day in style, we opened the bottle of champagne in our balcony, had one margarita in a cool hostel bar called Selena, and then (after walking in the rain looking for an open restaurant on a off-season Sunday evening) smashed down some awesome nachos and some huge enchiladas at Buena Vista. How healthy can one be?

Impressively enough, Monday was as good as the day before. The alarm clock rang at 6 am, and we had a hard time waking up. We ate so much the night before that we didn't sleep well enough. We made it to Bluff around 7:20 though and Gorda surfed for a bit over one hour, while I did my morning workout at the beach.

Our way back to Bocas was hilarious. We shared the transfer with a German family. One of the kids, a spoiled teenager, complained with us for having a board inside the car, for being wet, and for stinking - the last complaint was not accurate at all! He ended up being sit between us both, and also complaining with us for talking too much. We could not stop laughing. And an asshole!!!!

We made it to Bocas on time to have a quick breakfast at the hotel before leaving on our boat tour. And the boat tour was heaven on Earth. We spotted plenty of dolphins at dolphin bay, we snorkeled and swam at a coral reserve, we hiked around deserted Zapatilla Island (a Natural reserve) - we spent 2 hours in total there and, again, found a deserted beach just for the two of us -, we had a seafood lunch, we met two Portuguese guys, we saw starfishes, and then a few sloths. Around 4:30, we were back in the island. Can you believe how many things we did until 4:30? How many paradises we saw? And how many kilometers we walked/surfed/swam?

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Selena, reading a book, drinking a beer/water, and chatting a bit. For dinner, we were aiming at going to El Último Refugio, which was unexpectedly closed, so we ended up having delicious Indian food at Ohm.

We were damn happy in Bocas del Toro, which definitely got a place in our hearts!

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

 

Buenas Panamá!

After enjoying our day until 3:30 pm at Isla del Encanto, we had a series of trips until we made it to our next destination: Casco Viejo, in Panama City. We took the boat until Cartagena, one plane until Bogotá, another plane until Panamá City, and then a fairly quit shuttle until the best hotel of our honeymoon: American Trade Hotel.

American Trade Hotel was all we could ask for in a hotel in Casco Viejo, Panamá City's colonial old town. The building was colonial, majestic and beautiful; the decor was just right; it was super central; the rooms were beautiful and ours was on the last floor and had a view; the bed was the most comfortable ever; the food was yummy; the coffee was the most famous in town; the service was great; and the wifi worked much better than in any other hotel we stayed in.

We slept quite well, and woke up to a glorious breakfast in the glorious restaurant. After letting all the food calming down in our stomach, we did a killing workout. By midday, we were ready to explore Casco Viejo.

We followed really good tips from Lonely Planet about what to do in Casco Viejo, and we fell in love with the neighborhood.

We started by walking all the way through Casco Viejo's three main streets, stopping in every highlight. We checked every colorful street, we saw the natives selling molas in the seafront, we entered in every church (our favorite was the one we could see from our hotel room: Iglesia La Merced), and we checked a few hip stores. We then walked all the way to Mercado de Mariscos to have the best Ceviche ever. Mercado de Mariscos is a bunch of stalls selling fresh seafood and all types of ceviches. We had 2 kinds of Ceviche and Patacones filled with spicy shrimps. I happily entered the state of food coma, but gorda still had room to try the best ice cream in town at Granclement.

At 5 pm, we were supposed to go on a walking tour to discover Casco Viejo's gangland past, but it started pouring rain, and it got cancelled. Instead, we decided to do rum tasting at famous Pedro Mandinga - not really my type of thing but, you know, marriage is all about making concessions and I knew gorda would be crazily happy doing so.

And because we like really busy days, and we had recharged our batteries way too much in Isla del Encanto, we decided to quickly dress up and head to have a cocktail in a famous rooftop before having dinner. Unfortunately, Casa Casco was closed due to the recent rain, so we ended up just having a glass of wine in another cool rooftop (Barlovento) very close to the hotel and to the restaurant where we had a reservation.

Dinner at Caliope was absolutely awesome, and full of treats to the honeymooners (us!). We had marvelous cocktails, a few little appetizers offered by the restaurant and a very good tuna tartare, ordered by us. As main dishes, I had the best octopus ever (crispy on the outside, tender inside), and gorda corvina with the best lemon risotto ever. Because I was already tipsy, we shared a dessert. I always want desserts after one or two drinks... Both the bartender and the waiter kept joining our table and talked to us. Super nice service! To close the meal in style, again because we were honeymooners, Caliope offered us two chocolate truffles and two glasses of champagne with berries. Also, Caliope is located above one of the best clubs in town - Teatro Amador -, so we got free entrance and special escorting from our cool waiter at the restaurant.

At 6:30 am on the following day, we were having breakfast at American Trade Hotel, in order to catch an early flight to another paradise: Bocas del Toro.

Thank you Casco Viejo for treating us so well!