FROM BARCELONA TO LISBON

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Day 1: BARCELONA - LISBON

Friday, November 15, 2013

Start the day as usual and start as we always do in our travel diaries.
Today we have to work as usual, but it is a special day because in the afternoon we will fly to one of the cities we most wanted to know for years: Lisbon in Portugal.
After working, we only have time to go home, load our hand luggage in the car and get on our way to Barcelona airport.

Road to the Prat Airport. Travel from Barcelona to Lisbon.

It is Friday, so we find the Round quite collapsed, so it takes 45 minutes longer than expected to reach our usual parking AparcaiVola, where on this occasion we have booked a premium service, which includes the service of coming to pick up the car at the door of Terminal 1. To be there when we arrive, we call 15 minutes before arriving.
On the way back, which will be at 11 pm, we will do the same, just get off the plane, call and so in less than 15 minutes, we will have the car at the door.

An essential and quality service that has been with us for a long time on all our trips.
Another option that exists to make this journey, cheaper and that allows us not to use our private car, would be to make the trip between Girona and Barcelona by bus. There are bus information portals where you can calculate approximately the time it takes to reach the destination and what the bus ticket costs. It may be a somewhat more uncomfortable option, but certainly a relief for our pockets in these times.
In the end, between the passing of the controls, we look for the boarding gate of the flight from Barcelona to Lisbon and we found it, we looked at the clock and there are only 20 minutes left for boarding to begin, but it delays a few minutes, which we took advantage of to buy a couple of books that will accompany us on next trips ...

Prat airport. Waiting for the flight from Barcelona to Lisbon

This time we flew with TAP Portugal and just sit down and fasten our belts, we have that feeling that we like so much ... That feeling that the trip is already underway!
We started to rise above Barcelona, this time bound for Lisbon in Portugal.

Lisbon It is light. For years, every time we fly over a place, always, without knowing very well why, we immediately associate it with a color, pink in Marrakech, green in Sri Lanka ... and now as much as we look out the window, we don't see no color, we only see light and we cannot associate Lisbon to something other than this ... a perfectly lit city.
We arrived at the Airport of Lisbon After 15 minutes of 7 pm, a quarter of an hour later than expected and after setting the clocks, which is an hour less, we set off to the city of fados. Touch to scroll from the Lisbon airport to downtown.
One of the things we have discovered in this trip to Lisbon It is the offline map application and we are sure that it will come great for the trips we make ... great discovery!

Recommended travel cards
Remember that in order not to pay commissions and always have the current change we recommend you use the N26 card to pay and the Bnext and Revolut cards to get money at the ATMs. They are the ones we use, They are free and will save you a lot.
You can find more information in this article about the best cards to travel without commissions.

On the journey from the bus that takes us from the track of the Lisbon airport to Terminal 1, we have heard some guys commenting that taxis from the airport to the center of Lisbon They cost 15 euros. The truth is that it is not expensive, but we already have the firm idea of making the subway transfer, so when we arrive at Terminal 1, we stop at the Lisbon Tourist Office, which is going to the right and they inform us that the subway is leaving on the right hand side and that we can get the ticket right there on the machines.

Book your Airport⇆Lisboa transfer here

We start down escalators until we find the vending machines and first select 2 cards at 0.50 cents each (this is the cardboard itself).
In this mode, you can recharge the cards with the amount you want and thus go enjoying the public transport of Lisbon.
We choose the option of “24 hour bonus” which for 6 euros includes all Lisbon public transport: metro, tram, bus, elevators ...
The 24 hours start counting when you activate it and ends 24 hours later.
In the machine we have a small setback and it is that the logic tells you that you have to choose 2 cards of 0.50 cents each and 2 charges of 6 euros to have the two 24-hour bonuses.
As it is not, it turns out that you have to choose 2 cards, pay them and once they are printed, put them back in and recharge them one by one with the 24-hour voucher.
This is, at least, for us, the easiest recharge method we found 😉
A few months ago we booked a hotel very close to the Castelo de San Jorge, on the Costa do Castelo and for everything we have read it is very easy to get there.
We take the red line of the metro that is the Airport and we stop at Alameda, which is the stop that connects the red line with the green one, which is what we have to take to make a transfer, this time to the Rossio stop, where we We went down 10 minutes and 5 stops later.
When we went out we found a Lisbon cold, of temperature and why not say it we are misplaced for a long time, that it took us to orient the map in the position that we should.

More practical information to prepare your trip to Lisbon
- 10 essential tips for traveling to Lisbon
- 50 things to see and do in Lisbon
- The 5 best tours and excursions in Lisbon
- 10 essential places to visit in Lisbon
- How to go from Lisbon airport to downtown

In the end we managed to find the first elevator, in the Rua do Franqueiras, which will take us to the Rua Madalena and leaving, just in front, we will take the second one, which will take us to almost the doors of our accommodation in Lisbon, the This is Lisbon Hostel.
We arrived at 9 pm, so it's a quick check-in and without much thought, we will have dinner at the famous Chapito Restaurant that we have almost to the lake of the hostel and which wonders.

Chapito restaurant in Lisbon

We are welcomed by a bohemian atmosphere, with a craft shop at the entrance and a circus tent, in one of the dining rooms, which is where they place us.
The terrace has fantastic views but it is complete, so we have to settle for the Circus Tent. Maybe next time!
We ordered 1 cap of fritters, one of croquettes, one of potatoes and one of squid, plus water and coke for 27 euros.

Having dinner at Chapito Restaurant in Lisbon

Everything is great and the atmosphere in the place, invites you to stay longer.

Book the best rated tours and excursions in Spanish in Lisbon by travelers:
- Excursion to Sintra, Cascais and Estoril
- Guided tour of Lisbon
- Excursion to Óbidos and Fatima
- Boat trip at sunset
- Tour of Lisbon and Belém in full
- More excursions and tours here

But today has been a tiring day and tomorrow we want to start knowing Lisbon strongly, so seeing that it is after 11 pm, we end today.