Today was our last day in Portugal, but I think we spent it well. Since we visited the major attractions the day before, we spent today at one of the last places on the the Portuguese postcard: Belem Tower. This tower was pretty cool, it's absolutely gorgeous from the outside, but it took us 2 hours to walk to. We walked along the shore for four miles to get to this tower. It was a crazy treck. The sun beat down on us like it was burning on its last tank of gas and wanted to shine as bright as possible. I definitely tanned... burned... haha but it was worth it! It always is.
The tower is relatively small compared to everything we saw yesterday so we were in and out in no time. The most interesting thing that happened while we were touring the tower was that Melissa and I made three new friends. Three Greek guys got our attention and asked us where we were from; once we told them, we continued to make small talk. The craziest thing was that they asked if they could take a picture with us, haha! Imagine that. We did. Vise versa as well. And we went our separate ways. Melissa said it happened to her before when she studied abroad in Rome last year, but it was a whole new thing for me haha.
Anyway, we walked around for a bit afterwards, took some more pictures at a couple monuments and "accidentally" ran into those three guys again. It was a funny encounter. But we all just laughed as we continued to about our day. Since it took us two hours to walk to Belem tower, we decided it was best to take the train back to where we came from. We boarded the train and arrived at our destination in literally less than ten minutes. We couldn't believe how quickly the ride was and how long it took us to walk there ourselves. Man!
But any who, the day ended quite nicely as Melissa, Lu, Edgar, and I walked up an incredibly steep walkway to get to the top of a hill where we experienced the garden of Eduardo VII. It was so gorgeous as you could see the beautifully sculpted brush, monuments, and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. On top of that, there was a EPIC Portuguese flag of EPIC proportion proudly waving at the top of this hill. It was the best way to end our time in Portugal.
The four of us soon walked back to one of the hostels to pick up our stuff and head off to the airport. We arrived promptly and boarded our flight to Madrid. As soon as we arrived back in Madrid, we strategically found a quieter and warmer spot in the airport for us to sleep for the night. Lu and Edgar took the chairs while Melissa and I laid shamelessly on the ground next to the wall. It was the only way I could fall asleep. And I did... eventually. For a little while. Regardless of the circumstances, I slept much better at the airport this time around. We're getting better at this. Hard-core travelers, we are.
I'll never forget this experience.
Did you get to the monastery down the street from the tower? Did you go to Pasteis de Belem when you were down there for a pastel de nata? So good. Oh, I love Portugal. I haven't read all of your posts yet, but I hope you get to go to Sintra while you were in Portugal . . ..
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