Lisbon Jesse's Homeland - (June 9)

The city of Lisbon is situated comfortably on the west coast of Portugal. Portugal is situated comfortably on the western edge of Spain. Spain is situated comfortably on the western edge of Europe. Everyone is comfortably sensing a theme here. Portugal was the home of some of the greatest explorers ever to live such as Ferdinand Magellan and Vasco da Gama.

Lisbon held some quite incredible buildings. Aside from a beautiful seaside guard tower, there was an aquarium, with many stunning creatures including sharks, jellyfish, giant sunfish and stingrays. In addition to these attractions, Lisbon’s wonderful maritime museum was very cool. This museum had scale models of many ships, and even a twenty-four-pound cannon, which I identified correctly without aid of the signage. (Jesse)

Today we went on our excursion through Lisbon, Portugal. First we drove through the area of the city that is considered the old city center. It is directly along the coast, and contains large amounts of architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries. We stopped at several places, including a monastery/cathedral where the great explorer Vasco da Gama is buried (picture), and the maritime museum of Lisbon.



After this portion of the trip, we drove further North to the more modern part of the city, which actually holds some fascinating modern architecture. After a break for lunch (which was an excellent traditional Portuguese), we went to the Lisbon Oceanarium for our last stop. It is actually the second-largest Oceanarium in the world, and it was a fascinating experience. Overall, Lisbon was an extremely worthwhile stop on our itinerary along the European coast, and I would recommend it as an informative and beautiful destination. (Jacob)