Lisbon and Surrounds

Today I thought I'd share some photos from my recent trip abroad. I'll keep the explanations brief and mostly let the images speak for themselves.

The first stop was Lisbon:

 This is the Rossio train station; my hostel was located inside the station

 Commercial Square

 A few examples of the beautiful tile work that can be seen all over the city.

 The view of the Tagus river from the Alfama district

 The Castle of S�o Jorge on the top of the hill

 Inside the castle grounds

Overlooking the city center from atop the Santa Justa lift, shown below:

Which, incidentally, gave me terrible vertigo.

While in Portugal, I took a day trip to Sintra and Cascais:

While in Sintra I toured the Quinta da Regaleira estate:

 The whole place is amazing, but to me the best part was the acres and acres of lush garden filled with tunnels, grottoes, towers, statues, and all sorts of other surprises. Climb a tower and it leads to a hidden path; go down a dark tunnel and come up behind a waterfall; the whole property is designed to keep you exploring one place and then the next without retracing your steps.

 One of the few pictures I had someone take of me. This was out at the coast near Cascais.

I also spent about half a day in the Bel�m area, which is a short train ride from the Lisbon center:

The Padr�o dos Descobrimentos on the left, and Torre de Bel�m on the right. And yes, that is a bride posing for photos in front of the monument and a mini Golden Gate Bridge spanning the river.

A few views of the Mosteiro dos Jer�nimos (Monastery of the Hieronymites):

 And with that I will leave off, since that's a lot of photo posting for one day. I'll share a few from the France part of the trip in my next post.