Subway And Buses And Trains, Oh My!

Today in the beautiful country of Portugal I went to Belém and spent too much on public transportation. Two of my friends and I joined a large group going to Belém. Part of the reason we did so is because we thought she knew exactly what she was doing. She did not. We took the Underground to Cais de Sodre and then had to get a ticket for the train to Belém. We were told that there were many museums that are free to the public on Sundays until 2pm, which is true, so we got in line for the Mosteiro Dos Jeronimos (a Monastery). It is not a museum. I was not sure what we were standing in line for; I assumed it was a free museum or something of the sort because that is what the majority of the group wanted to do. We got to the ticket counted and paid five euros with our SAS student ID and after an hour-long wait, got into the Monastery. Thankfully it started pouring right after we were admitted into the Monastery. I’ll post a picture below because I’m not sure I could tell you about the architecture besides mentioning that it was a High Gothic style (I think) and full of intricately detailed arches. At this time we were a group of 19 but this changed when three other girls and I decided we had seen as much as we wished to and that it was time to go to the next tourist attraction.

The girls and I walked through a garden to get to a monument right by the water in Belém. It goes maybe six stories high and features famous explorers from history. Look at the picture below. Unfortunately I don’t know the name of it and can’t look it up because the internet may as well not exist on the ship. Next we went to the Tower of Belém (picture below), and this is another good example of High Gothic style and a great tourist attraction. After all the walking and sight-seeing we decided to get lunch at a little café by the Tower of Belém and I made my friends Sydney and Emily try pasteis de nata because they had not yet tried them (A crime if you ask me). They thought the pastries were amazing, of course. If they hadn’t, I don’t know if we would be friends anymore…

Using the day pass we got from the Underground station we caught the 728 bus back to the city and walked back to where our ship is docked. We walked so much today that I’m wishing I had a new pair of feet to explore the city with, but since I don’t, it’s off to bed with me.

When it rains in Belém, it pours,

-Alexis




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tesco is like Narnia

Image
            I’m writing this on my last day in Scotland, a Tuesday if you’re curious, and my friend decided that we absolutely had to go to the Tesco in Greenock, just so she could say that she went to a supermarket that is so quintessentially British. At the beginning of our short excursion we did not have particularly high expectations of Tesco; we thought it would be just like any ordinary American supermarket but with different brands. Once we walked into Tesco though, we realized just how extraordinary it truly was. Tesco, as my friend Emily said, is like Narnia. You walk in curious, but not overly hopeful, only to be completely amazed by what you find inside. Those average, automatic doors hid a wonderland of aisles as far as the eye can see. There were groceries, a deli section, oh, and don’t let me forget the clothes that take up the entire second floor. One of the first things we saw was Tesco’s escalators (not the step kind, the gradual incline t...
Read more

The Russian Orthodox Thigh Master

Image
Be prepared for many pictures...              The third day of Russia was one of the longest, as it consisted of a tour of four of St. Petersburg’s churches: the Holy Trinity Cathedral (along with the Alexander Nevsky Abbey and a Cemetery), Our Savior of the Spilled Blood Church, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and St. Vladamir’s Cathedral. If you have the chance to visit the Spilled Blood Church, I would advise you to take it! The inside is the most amazing thing. There are floor to ceiling mosaics that show important Biblical figures and famous parables and I wish I could have spent more time inside since I wanted to see each and every gold, mosaic-surrounded image. My other favorite of the day was St. Isaac’s Cathedral. For this church we had the option to either go inside the church or to go up to the colonnade—ascending 262 steps to get there! My friend Sidney and I chose this option, and you may think that 262 steps is no big deal. Let me tell you, i...
Read more

Burr(en) It’s Cold Out Here (Ireland Day 3, Part 2)

Image
           After the Cliffs of Moher Mist it was lunch time so we stopped at Fitzpatrick’s Bar, which is a pub with the most Irish name to ever be Irish. Here I had some amazing seafood chowder and had the chance to get out of the very traditional rainy weather for a while. The next stop was actually my favorite stop: Burren. This is an area by the Ireland coast against the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a huge limestone deposit that has crisscrossing cracks known as “grikes.” In these grikes it is possible to see arctic, Mediterranean, and alpine plants all growing together because of the odd environment. Since the area is full of cracks, walking around on the deposit is almost like playing hopscotch because you have to hop from stone to stone to avoid the cracks. It was amazing because the landscape was something so unlike anything I’d seen before, but, it was also the coldest stop we made. Rain was coming down and there was a chill that even my scarf and rain jac...
Read more