A return to Lisbon was something that was always on the cards. It’s just one of those cities that is so easy to fall in love with, fall in step with and quite frankly, feel at home in. (I long since added it to the list of cities I’d happily move to).
And so, with that, we went off to Portugal, this time swapping that artists apartment for stay at the beautiful Four Seasons Hotel Ritz.
When you book a stay at the Four Seasons generally, expectation are fairly high and the Four Seasons in Lisbon is no exception. Even the simple act of just handing your keys over to the valet (parking becomes their problem, not yours 😆) just makes you feel holiday-ready.
Then, of course, you open the door to your room, find amazing Portuguese treats waiting for you and pretty much know you’re going be doing with the rest of your evening. 😀 🍷
Though to be fair, dinner was very much on my mind as we hadn’t had any and so with that we popped downstairs to the restaurant (it was like 10pm, by this point) for dinner, before heading back upstairs to polish off the rest of that wine.
The good thing about relatively early nights, is relatively early morning – meaning there’s so much more time to explore the city (I’m not really an early morning person so I really appreciate it when it happens naturally).
Breakfast was at the famous Varanda restaurant (*you might remember it from this post here – if not, there’s more on it further down) – complete with live piano music (serious old school glamour, right here).
Eventually, (after a pit stop to check out the view from the rooftop), we headed out to town to basically take in the sights of Lisbon.
One of the best parts about having visited a city before is that there’s so much less pressure to have to check out ALL of the sights. You can pick and choose on a whim and just return to wherever you feel like. In fact, if your mood dictates that you spend you afternoon drinking wine – that’s what you do. It’s brilliant! 😆
We headed down to the riverside, wandering off to check out the Padrao dos Descobrimentos (that monument next to the bridge)….
…and then onto the Belem Tower
…before stopping off for lunch (totally out of convenience) in the same restaurant we ate in around Belem the last time we visited.
I can’t remember the name of that dish Lloyd ordered – the one with the egg in the middle but raw eggs kinda freak me out so I went for a very safe choice of garlic prawns and a steak sandwich.
Food was okay nothing special per se but given that we’d kinda compromised for convenience, it hit the spot rather adequately.
Another one of my favourite spots in the city is the Jeronimos Monastery and so off we went to check it out after lunch, knowing full well that it was almost next door to Pasteis de Belem – where I planned on grabbing my dessert from. 😀
Alas, our timing couldn’t have been more wrong for the Monastery as it was actually closed for the day. Like, you can appreciate it from the outside and stuff but if you wanna check it out inside (which, to be fair, we already did last time), then perhaps avoid visiting on a Monday. 😀
The Pasteis de Belem more than made up for it though. The queues were almost none-existent when we arrived and so before long, we had our mitts on arguably my favourite Portuguese sweet treat.
This, by the way, is one of those touristy things to do in Lisbon that totally lives up to the hype. The tarts are delicious, always fresh and the queue moves fairly quickly so I have no problems going out of my way to head here for a mid-afternoon sugar fix.
Eventually, we made our way up to Alfama, one of the oldest districts in Lisbon (also home to the Castle) and arguably one of its prettiest.
One of my favourite things up here though has got to be the tiles. Portugal is known for amazing tile work and this is never quite as apparent as up here in this part of town.
The rest of the afternoon was just spent lazily ambling through the streets, stopping off every now and again to hunt for souvenirs, before deciding to head back to the Four Seasons to relax by the pool before dinner (where, by the way, even more sweet treats abound! 😋)
Our dinner plans were something I’d been looking forward to long before we arrived into Lisbon.
Now remember, I mentioned how amazing the Varanda restaurant is here (above and in this post here), well this evening, our plans were to dine here and not just on the regular menu – oh, no – it was the chef’s tasting menu!
I’m such a fan of tasting menus! I like to surprise myself with them and so, even when provided with a proper menu giving you the play-by-play of all the courses planned for the evening, I tend to ignore it and instead wait for each item to come out before finding out more about it from our waiter.
This way, I have no preconceived notions or expectations which is more exciting, I’d say and definitely more interesting.
And so off we went on what must have been an 11 course meal (complete with wine pairing) which genuinely delighted with every bite. Beef cooked to perfect, prawns almost the size of lobsters, butters that glazed like marbles – seriously, ever single detail of this meal was sheer perfection. I had such high expectation with the food here and it was absolutely amazing! The kind of food to make you giddy – even sans alcohol.
Dessert is one of my favourite parts of any meal and the dessert here was one that pretty much everyone would like – in large part because, you pretty much get an entire tray of desserts (in addition to the ones you have on your table) served up to you.
Like seriously, even the fussiest of eaters will find at least a couple of things they like here. Dessert-gluttons like me however, found everything I liked on here. I kid you not, I only stopped when I physically couldn’t eat any more.
Thoroughly content and absolutely pleased as punch with myself, I called it a night and headed upstairs for an amazing night’s sleep!
Tomorrow, we would be leaving Lisbon in search of other towns and cities in Portugal and this brief stay in the city – and especially at the Four Seasons – is exactly how every holiday should start, well-rested, (definitely) well-fed and absolutely eager and ready to soak up as much Portuguese beauty as the next few days was ready to hand to us. 😀
Catch you in the next post.
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