Lissabon

Lisbon is a beautiful city. When I first discovered that that was the place, we were headed for our student trip, my immediate impression was not overwhelming. I hadn’t really given the capital of Portugal any thought before. It’s not the first place that comes to mind, when you think of Europe’s many capitals, but nonetheless, it’s definitely worth a trip.

We were going to be gone for 5 days. The whole first day was spent on traveling, with an intermediate landing in Paris. We arrived in Lisbon at about 11 pm. Since it was at night we arrived, and our form of transportation from the airport to our hotel was the subway train, we naturally did not see any of Lisbon, until we came up from the ground. The sight and atmosphere I was met with then, when we came up, was pretty cool. The architecture of the tall buildings and the warm temperature really added to the fact, that we were no longer in cold Denmark.

The weather in Lisbon was definitely unreliable. In those days that we were there, the weather shifted between raining, being cold and then all of a sudden very nice and warm. I was almost always wearing a layer too much or too little, as you never knew how to dress accordingly. Luckily at the end of the trip, the weather was more stable, but in the beginning, when our walking was at it’s most it alternated extremely. A lot of students also became sick on this trip. I shared a room with five other people, and two of them became sick. I don’t know if there’s any correlation between that and the weather, but nonetheless that’s what the situation was. I felt very bad for them, because they had to miss a lot of the sights in Lisbon, but also because it’s just not the most wonderful feeling to be sick, in another country far from home. 

The first characteristic feature that I noticed in Lisbon was its hills. When we would go on tours of the city, we would usually at one point have to walk up a lot of stairs, because Lisbon is so filled with them, given the landscape. Also another thing you will notice, if you chose to visit Lisbon, is mosaic. There was a lot of mosaic. It covered some of the buildings, the pavements and the cobblestones. Everywhere you turned, you would most likely see some mosaic.

Another noticeable trait of Lisbon, it its street art. In Lisbon no building is safe from being painted on. The works certainly varied though, in terms of artistic beauty I found.  Some of the street art was simple graffiti, but other were more serious works, with political messages behind them, while also being incredibly beautiful.  We had a guide showing us around Lisbon to highlight the street art the city offered. She really put all the works in perspective and was incredibly enthusiastic about the culture of street art, in Lisbon and in general. So that was very nice, that she could show us some of the more meaningful and famous works, which we then could differentiate from the unnecessary.  

  

As part of the subject-related program, each time that we were at a specific monument or on a tour, we would listen to podcasts we had made in advance that concerned themselves with the place we were at. We visited a lot of cathedrals e.g. Lisbon cathedral. The cathedrals were modelled after a gothic style, so they were usually very large, had very high ceilings and were decorated inside, with many things, including paintings of different saints. This is of course because they are catholic.

The class and i also got to see São Jorge Castle, which occupies a commanding hilltop that overlooks the center of Lisbon. We also saw the Jerónimus monastery, where we had a guide showing us around. In the monastery there were a lot of tombs, buried under the “floor”. There were also the most beautiful two story cloisters, which opened up to a green field, and a fountain in the middle.

Of the many wonderful memories I have of this trip, my favourite may be, when my friends and I discovered these street musicians. It had just gotten dark outside, the temperature was just right, and we were on our way to dinner, and then suddenly we heard music. We then saw a whole bunch of people standing in a circle surrounding these four maybe five guys, who had placed their instruments in the street, and started performing for the audience they gathered. Then they began dancing, and encouraged us to dance as well. They taught the audience a simple routine, and for their final number, we the audience, and the band did it together. That was pretty cool, it’s very simple, but you honestly felt like you were a part of something, along with all these people that you didn’t even know. That memory particularly stands out. 

So all in all it was a good trip, and Lisbon’s many wonders definitely enhanced the experience.