Lagos and Lisbon Take 2 [feat. Canadians]

Lagos

When Michael and visited Lagos the first time around we definitely felt like we had lost our hearts to this gorgeous beach city. Unfortunately we were suffering from a completely scarring bed bug event and didn't get to enjoy the stunning beaches as much as we would have liked to, therefore, this time around a beach day was my main objective!

We had a long 7 hour bus ride (blehhh) to Lagos but thankfully arrived to our hostel and were greeted by the gorgeous pool (below).

Our only plan at this point was to find somewhere to get food and drinks. The last time we were here Michael and I had fallen in love with this amazing bar and restaurant called the Nah Nah Bar, so naturally I wanted to head straight back for more!

Finally, we found the Nah Nah Bar and I got my favourite, the famous Bottom Line (another thing we fell in love with on our first trip to Lagos) and I got an amazingly delicious chicken burger, probably the biggest burger I have ever eaten!

The next day = beach day!

We walked along the cliffs of Lagos which provide stunning views of the amazing beaches!

The views were just as incredible as I remembered, it wasn't hard to remember why we had fallen in love with this beautiful town to begin with!

We took lots of photos of the gorgeous scenery - when your surroundings are this good it's hard not to!

Ray checking out the view!

My attempt at a panorama shot!

We spent the majority of the day baking in the sun at this lovely beach - the water is absolutely freezing here!

While at our fun hostel in Lagos we made friends with a bunch of awesome Canadians - it seemed like this hostel was literally filled with our northern friends! I had an amazing time getting to know them and we were so lucky to meet such cool people!

Above is a photo of myself with some of my Canadians (and token Aussie) friends - it was supposed to be 80s night and although I am not exactly following the theme this might explain the fluro leggings!

Later that night we went out, again with our Canadian mates - this is an awesome picture of my favourite Canadian ladies: Jaclyn and Christina - we headed out to a bar in the centre of the old town of Lagos and the drinks definitely flowed!

The following day Ray and I set off on another little adventure of our own along the Algarve coastline - this was called coasteering. Coasteering is basically a combination of rock climbing, swimming and cliff jumping and it involved in making a little trek along the coastline and jumping off cliffs.

The guys who ran the trip wouldn't let me bring my camera but they took some ok photos using their GoPro. 

This is me, jumping off (I wanna say) a 4-5m rock and wearing the most unflattering wetsuits/shorts combination you have ever seen! We had a to practice jumping off different rocks so that those who were brave enough could perfect their technique in order to be able to jump from the 12-15m jump. Needless to say neither of us were brave enough and we didn't make it past the 6m jump - that was definitely high enough for me and I will totally admit that I was scared! Given my complete fear of heights I am pretty happy with this small accomplishment haha!

Some more photos of our group clambering through caves and rock pools and emerging on the beach. It was a rough and windy day and even rained a little, the water was absolutely freezing but somehow we still managed to have fun!

As usual, this felt like it was just not enough time in Lagos!

Lisbon

We arrived in Lisbon pretty late in the afternoon and only had a few hours to walk around and explore the city before Ray had to leave for London. Lisbon is one of my personal favourite cities in Europe and although it doesn't have any major 'must see' attractions, it is just a lovely city to walk around and explore. 

I have lots of photos of Lisbon from the last time I visited so I didn't take too much time to take a lot of snaps. Above is a photo of my posing in front of one of the major squares in Lisbon, Lisbon is actually filled with lots of squares that are surrounded by restaurants and bars. 

 Above: the cathedral of Lisbon and another pretty square, this one is well known for the tiled patterns on the ground, which are quite hypnotising. 

The pink streets of Lisbon - I don't know how but I didn't manage to discover this the last time I was in Lisbon! Turns out this was the main club/bar area in Lisbon and were all the crazy party animals come to going out all night! I had this encounter on the way to catch my 4am airport shuttle haha!

The following day I was flying solo! I had made friends with a lovely Canadian girl (again) at my hostel and she invited me along for a beach day with another guy she had met at her previous hostel and some of the guests from there. It was one of the most random days I have ever had but so much fun!

We spent the majority of the day sunbaking and swimming on the beach and then went back to one of the guys house for some home made traditional Portuguese food - it doesn't get much more authentic then that! I was really lucky to meet such a cool group of laid back people to spend the day hanging out with!

The following day I met back up with my original Canadian buddies and we headed to the city of Sintra - this is about 45 minutes outside of Lisbon. We had meant to visit her last time we had been in Lisbon but never got the time, so this time I was keen to go check it out!

Sintra is the home of castles in Europe and has 4-5 major castles all located in the one small town. We headed for the Quinta da Regaleira, which is a reasonable sized castle but with a huge garden, which was the part I was most interested in seeing.

The palace gardens were beautiful and we had a surprisingly fun time exploring them!

Two of my new favourite Canadian friends: Jaclyn and Colby. I was lucky enough to spend the day third-wheeling with them and they were nice enough not to complain once!

We found these awesome little tunnels and had so much fun exploring them! They were like little underground caves and pathways, some were lit up with lights like the one above but some were completely dark! It was very mysterious and we had a really good time wandering around!

Finally we literally stumbled upon the part of the gardens I had wanted to see: The Inverted Tower. This is a crazy twisted tower that instead of being build upwards was built down into the ground. The photos don't do it justice but it was really an amazing and very strange thing to visit. 

The inverted tower actually gives the entire estate its names: Quinta da Regaleira.

Above left are some other cool landmarks found in the estate - including the castle (top right), which, believe it or not, had an actual kangaroo carved into the side of it! 

I will keep this one short because I know I am pretty far behind on my travel blogs this time around. Lisbon and Lagos, once again, delivered the goods. Portugal still remains up there as one of my favourite countries in the world and it will be a tough one to beat. 

Much love to Portugal and all the amazing (mostly Canadians) I met there

xx