Today we had a large but disparate group outing to the nearby town of Sintra. We met up at Starbucks in the train station and realized that we could leave immediately or wait an hour for the next train so a group of us hustled and made it on to the first train. Upon arriving it turned out more of us made it than I had originally thought. We walked from the train station up to Palacio da Pena which isn’t a long walk but it is very steep. The walk was worth it, though, because the palace, the grounds and the view were all great. I got separated from everyone and ended up by myself so I walked down through the gardens, the valley of lakes and then up to the Castelo dos Mouros on the lower peak. This is also cool but not as neat as the Pena Palace. From here I walked down to the train station and was exhausted by the time I got down there so I had lunch at Cafe Saudade by the station before heading back to Lisbon.
Category: Lisbon
Day 106 | September 9
Another pretty low key day today. Started off, as usual, at Copenhagen Coffee Lab and worked there for awhile before heading over to our Galerias work space. Unfortunately, my motivation really waned on my way over and by the time I got there I decided that a better use of my time would be getting tacos. I had been meaning to check out Taqueria Pistola y Corazon anyway so I headed there. They had a great lunch special; nine Euros for a juice, chips & salsa, a quesadilla, three tacos and an espresso. And the tacos were very good. I’ll definitely be going back there for lunch. Wasn’t much help to my lack of motivation, though, so I just headed home and worked a bit from there for the rest of the day.
Day 105 | September 8
Another rather uneventful day today. Started off, as usual, with a stop at Copenhagen Coffee Lab (I really need to branch out…) and worked there for a while. Around lunch time there was a raw cooking demo/networking event at our Leap Center work space so I headed over to watch that. I had some errands to run before I needed to be settled in and working so I had to leave this a little early. I was hoping that I could find some ear plugs, which has been an ongoing quest, at the big shopping center near the work space. While wandering around that shopping center and reading an email on my phone I accidentally walked into Italian Republic and a waiter started trying to seat me. Not wanting to admit that I’d wandered in by accident because I was reading my phone I was forced to sit down and have lunch. I had been craving bolognese lately so I at least was able to get some. It was kind of a quick mall concept type place so mostly unremarkable. Afterwards, I succeeded in my quest to find ear plugs. Upon returning to Leap I discovered that the internet was down so after a bit I just resigned myself to heading home and working from there for the rest of the day.
Day 104 | September 7
A relatively uneventful day today. Grabbed coffee at my usual Copenhagen Coffee Lab on the walk over to our Galerias work space. In the morning we had a little business development work shop and then we had a town hall meeting and a little celebration for crossing the 100 mark. I worked at the office for a while but was feeling unusually tired so I headed home to work for the rest of the day and had a quick dinner at Time Out Market. The proximity of that place to my home is really hampering my motivation to explore other places to eat.
Day 103 | September 6
A pretty uneventful day today. Swung by my favorite Copenhagen Coffee and then to our nifty Galerias work space and basically worked all day. In the evening my sudden need for some internet access took me into O’Gilins pub which had a decently good Irish Pub feel but certainly wasn’t anything to write home about. Then it was home to try and fall asleep before the nightly raging party started in the streets outside my window.
Day 102 | September 5
I didn’t get much sleep last night so today was a pretty low key day dominated by catching up on work that I let slide over the weekend. I headed over to my favorite Lisbon haunt; Copenhagen Coffee Lab (a productive improvement over my favorite London haunt; Scarfes Bar) and worked there for most of the day. I had a late lunch/early dinner at my other Lisbon staple; TIme Out Market and then dozed off while trying to catch up on the reading elements of work.
Day 101 | September 4
A more relaxed pace today as we spent the first half just lounging at Praia da Mata and the beaches in that same string. We tried to go over to Belen in the evening but it was completely overrun with tourists so we went back to our neck of the woods and had the best sangria I’ve ever had at some little wine bar before going to dinner at The Decadente.
Day 100 | September 3
Hey, 100 days in. My day count is a little fast of the larger groups since I count from when I actually left and started traveling and not our official start date. As one might imagine, it’s completely flown by. Today we did a food walking tour of Lisbon. The GD data on my phone wasn’t working so I didn’t note everywhere we went but it was a good overview. Not as good as my food tour in Prague but still fun. After that we went to the famous Lisbon Oceanarium which was very cool but I didn’t think it lived up to all the hype that I’d heard about it. In the evening we went to Cruzes Credo which was great. Perfect outdoor patio, good food and very reasonably priced.
Day 99 | September 2
More work was still on the docket today so we posted up at the Sofitel for basically the entire day and slowly had breakfast, lunch and drinks there while working. In the evening we went to Bengal Tandoori for dinner which I had been hearing good things about. It was very good put I’m hardly an expert on Indian food.
Day 98 | September 1
There was still a lot of work that needed doing today. After walking all the way to check out another coffee shop/cafe that I had heard was a good place to work from it, of course, ended up being closed. We wandered around for a while but finally had to get to work so ended up at the ever faithful Starbucks. Work dominated the whole day and for dinner we reprised my favorite meal to date at A Cevicheria