Bike Tour Around Lisbon

To experience Lisbon (Lisboa in Portuguese), our parents decided to take us on a 23 km bike tour. Our first stop was at the famous Praça do Comércio pronounced (pra-suh doo kum-air-sju) in English that means the Square of Commerce. We learned that in 1755 there was a huge earth quake destroying parts of Lisbon, causing panic. That was not the worst of it, an enormous tsunami wiped out the square completely! At the time, the King of Portugal lived in the building around the square but he happened not to be in Lisbon when it happened. When he came back he was afraid of living near the water so he had a palace built at the highest point of the city.

We saw really cool animal creations that our tour guide explained were made by Bordalo II. He is an artist that goes around Portugal, collecting recyclable garbage and uses it to make beautiful art on buildings. Bordalo’s grampa was also named Bordalo and was an artist which is why he goes by Bordalo II. He uses garbage to represent the pollution in the world and to remind people to take better care of their environment. We only saw 3 of his creations but he has a lot more around Portugal.

Next we went down pink street which is a street painted bright pink although the buildings along the street were not pink. Pink street was painted pink in 2011 to make it a more fun and family friendly street where lots of bars and restaurants line the street. A really fun thing about pink street is that rainbow umbrellas are tied together, making a sort of roof.

Then we continued on and came to an old monastery called the Jerónimos Monastery built in 1501-1600. It took almost one hundred years to build because they did not have the tools that we have now. We also checked out an old palace built in the 16th century for royalty but is now used as the President’s home.

Finally our last stop was at a bakery called Pastéis de Belém where we got Pastel de Belems which is similar to Pastel de Nata but these were the original created by monks that lived in the Jerónimos monastery. They are flaky pastries filled with warm custard and are served with powdered sugar and cinnamon. These were amazing and were better than all the Pastel de Nata’s we’ve had all trip.

It was an exhausting but fun day.