Shelby's Travels

Day 11! Kat left at 3am 😭 so I’m back on my own. Originally, I was supposed to head to Porto this day but I was feeling like 1 full day in Lisbon just wasn’t going to be enough for me. A perk of my lack of planning for this trip is that I can be flexible like this since I didn’t have anything booked for Porto yet!

But the goal for today was lots more walking and wandering to eventually end up at Pasteis de Belem. Belem is a neighborhood 7.5km West along the water.

Sometimes these European churches all look the same and when you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all… but I really enjoyed this one! I like how you can see the old vs the new and it has history and a story behind it.

Now starting the long walk to Belem. It was misty on and off so I had to take a break in this park. I think this walk, leisurely and with stops, took me almost 3 hours. but I enjoyed it!

FINALLY made it to Pasteis de Belem! So this is the bakery of Jerónimos Monastery. The nuns here created the original pastel de nata. This happened because they used to smash egg white to make the bread for communion and they didn’t want to waste all the egg yolks, so they had to create. Recipe to use the egg yolks! Out popped pastel de nata!

In all honestly… it wasn’t my fav pastel de nata this trip. I prefer the crème to be sweeter than this and the crust was so crunchy it was like a cracker. The other one is an orange pudding roll or something. That was pretty good. None of it was bad by any means, just wasn’t as amazing as I thought it’d be. Regardless. happy to say I tried it!

So by this time it was early evening, I had to get back to my original hotel, talk with the concierge about buying a train ticket to Porto, and transfer my bags from this hotel to a new hotel since I extended my stay an extra day. All of that and it got me exactly on time to dinner!

Dinner was at Bohemia LX for a Fado show.

Fado is a kind of Portuguese music that has a lot of passion and emotion, typically about longing. Fado is typically performed while you have a meal. I was seated literally front row, up close and personal.

Let me tell you… I loved this experience. I found the music to be so beautiful and passionate. I was constantly covered in goosebumps! No idea what they were saying, but I could feel what they were saying. High recommend! Watch the video!

Really great way to wrap up my day and time in Lisbon!