As I departed from Sevilla, I officially entered the last leg of my trip. It’s a bit bittersweet because it means that my journey is coming to an end, but it’s also exciting because I get to see 6 new cities. After a short flight from Sevilla, I met special guest #3, Joselyn! She’s one of my friends that loves to travel as much as I do. Luckily, she was able to take off enough time from work to stay with me for the remainder of my trip. In about 3 weeks we’ll see Lisbon, Marseille, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, and Santorini.
Lisbon
Heading to Lisbon, I had very few expectations of what this city had to offer. In my mind I felt like it would be kind of like Spain but with a different language. That was a bit true because there is a shared history as far as the Moors and Catholicism, but Lisbon had a brilliance all its own.
The first thing that surprised us was the amount of hills in the city. Walking around, it felt like San Francisco. They even had a tram system and we found out that some of the original trams brought to the city were made in San Francisco. The hills turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it allowed us to work off all of the cheap food that Lisbon has. Tasty food at a good price is a great and sometimes dangerous combination. One of our favorite places was right around the corner from our Airbnb. It was a restaurant with a half Italian and half Indian menu. It was an odd combo, but it worked. Both sides of the menu were really tasty. Our first evening, we visited the St. George’s Castle which was probably at the top of the tallest hill in the city. At least that’s what it felt like. It’s a medieval castle that was built by the Moors and taken over by Catholics (a common theme in the Iberian Peninsula).
The next day we did a free walking tour with Sandeman’s, which was wonderful. Our tour guide was really informative and suggested that we try the pub crawl. That leads to the next thing that we were a bit surprised about. Lisbon nightlife. It was reminiscent of New Orleans to me. There were people everywhere, drinks everywhere, and just a great time overall. I think we got back home at like 5 or 6. A long night, but loads of fun. The next day, as you can imagine, we were moving a bit slow. We relaxed most of the day and ate at our favorite Indian/Italian place. We headed for our next stop the following morning. Marseille!
Marseille
We spent three days in Marseille and things were a bit slower than in Lisbon. It could be because we were in Marseille during the week, but I’m not sure. We stayed near Vieux Port, so we were within walking distance of most of the sites. Similar to Lisbon, there were hills. They weren’t as bad, and we really only had to deal with them on the way to the Notre Dame cathedral. Once we got to the top, there were great views of the city.
Our second day, we took a train to Monaco. Monaco was so beautiful. We spent some time.on the beach soaking up the south of France sun. Afterwards we walked to the Monte Carlo casino only to realize there was a cover charge to get in that we weren’t willing to pay, but it was gorgeous from the outside
We spent some more time walking around the city and once again found more hills as we walked up to the royal palace. After that, we headed back to Marseille. The train took about 3 hours each way. After dinner we turned in early because we had to wake up in the morning for our flight to Amsterdam. Little did we know, our morning was going to be a bit complicated.
Upon waking up around 6:30, we found out that our easyJet flight to Amsterdam had been canceled due to a pilot strike. They had no other flights that day or in the next two days. We already had our accommodations for Amsterdam paid for, so we weren’t the happiest campers. We searched for a flight on another airline in a panic, but anything remotely affordable was unavailable. After a couple hours of frustration, we ended up buying train tickets. With stops, the train took about 6 hours. Not the greatest experience, but it was better than spending $500. We got to the train literally one minute before it departed, but at the end of the day we made it and that’s all that matters.
That afternoon we arrived in Amsterdam and settled into our Airbnb. See my next post for my thoughts on Amsterdam and Berlin. Later gators
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