3 Days In Lisbon

3 words to describe Lisbon:- intricate
- grand
- colourful

I'm not really sure how we ended up booking this destination, if anything it seemed a bit randomly selected by means of flight availability and affordability. We knew what we were aiming for: some sunshine and a temperature above 15 degrees would suit us just fine, hence Lisbon.
November the 17th: we landed at the Lisbon airport, excited and hungry for an authentic experience. We had three days to make the most of it. Residential florentia was our home for 3 nights, affordable and central, it provided an excellent base for us to commute from, everything was a short walk.

Taken on the sands of Cascais

Day One:

We arrived at our hotel and settled in, the room was "cosy" and it often took some coordinating for us both to manoeuvre around the room without bumping into everything and each other. Walls were slightly paper thin but the exhilaration of being in a new city made us quickly forget the rooms downfalls.
Eager to explore but famished, we literally walked a few steps and turned to the right: on the corner was Bonjardim restaurant; our first Lisbon meal just had to be grilled chicken and chips with Portuguese rolls.

walking down the streets of Lisbon near Rossio square

Belly full and hungry eye's, we headed down Rua Augusta and got an immediate feel for the city, waiters lined the street, ready to coax you into their establishments. We walked all the way down and through the main arch clock tower, the sea air slaps you in the face and your appetite is awakened once again :). Walking across the marbled square, you will come to the edge of the city that looks over the waters, in the distance the lights of a Seattle style bridge sparkles while the moon crescents in the navy sky.

view from the coast

Amorino...my love

 It is beautiful. I was pleasantly surprised to see our favourite ice cream parlour: Amorino. We first came across this heavenly shop when we were in Barcelona and took full advantage of its variety of ice cream flavours. Chocolate always hits the spot for me.(as for the rose inspired ice cream and select as many flavours as you want, it all gets crafted into a beautiful rose)

Day Two:

I had done some research on the top ten sites to see, Sintra came highly recommended and so we decided on a day trip to this extraordinary location. We woke early, an hour too early as we had not changed our time difference, we wondered why the city was still sleeping so heavily :)
We boarded a train from rossio station to Sintra, the journey took an hour. The scenery was rural but still interesting to see. We Arrived in Sintra,

Sintra train station

winding slopes leading up to the castle

Still wondering why our train was running late? ( and still not picking up we were an hour early) we finally boarded the bus and made the steep journey to the Moorish castle. Because of our limited time, we picked our two must see sights and stuck to the plan as we still wanted to fit in Cascais. As we rolled through the town of Sintra, the calmness of the town with its peaking tree tops and mossed rocks gave us a spiritual feel. My excitement peaked as I saw the tell tale signs of cobblestone rock in the distance, indicating the up coming castle. Moorish castle was our first stop, from there it is a short walk to Pena Palace. I enjoyed doing Moorish castle first as it set a tone for Pena.

green moss

picturesque

one of the castle towers

winding stairs

Moorish castle took me to a different era, my camera went into over gear as the photo opportunities were endless, the stark green moss and vegetation contrasted with the speckled cobblestone grey and the blue sky enveloped it all. I was in photo heaven.

Geronimo the tour guide

We had a feline tour guide which I named Geronimo, he spent more time brushing up against the trees than showing us around, but it was still good to have an extra companion.

Queen of my very small castle

Pena Palace sat perched high up on a green hill, as I winded my way through, I caught glimpses of worn jewelled colours through the tree's, I knew this place would take my breath away. Pena Palace has thousands of visitors and is one of the most visited sites, it is also listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. First a chapel was constructed and later a monastery, for many years, this site was a place of worship. An earthquake took the place to ruins but left the chapel relatively unharmed. Many years later, King Ferdinand bought the palace and grounds and commissioned a romantic style palace to be built which was used as a Summer house.

The palace changed royal hands over the years and was the home of Portugal's last queen: Amelia. As the royal funds declined; the state of Portugal bought the Palace and it now stands as a museum for all to savour.

Pena palace sign board at station

breath taking and Grand

Entrance to Pena

Beautiful tiles lining the inside of an arch

Pena tower

Contrasting rugged colours of walls

At this point my appetite was starting to soar and we ventured back down the hill, through the town and back to the station to catch the bus headed for Cascais. A short ride with many stops finally got us to the little fisherman's village, I immediately took to Cascais, it is small, quaint and has ample character. Flower pots in windows, locals chatting on the corner and the sea air whisking through the streets.

Our view from the restaurant

Local walking on a Sunday

We grabbed a prego roll with a beautiful view on a secluded beach, the sun was by no means hot but temptation took hold of us and we headed down to the coved beach and just lay on the sand for an hour...it felt soooo good. The waves lapped romantically while some traditional Portuguese guitar melodies played in the background. I was full, sleepy, happy and elated.

I was very surprised by the food in Lisbon, we have quite a big portuguese population in South Africa and I have also been to Mozambique which has the same; I always thought the food would be saucy and heavily spiced, quite the opposite here, main flavouring ingredients are simple coarse salt and garlic and you will get a peri peri based oil on the side. Our first prego roll seemed quite plain, it had flavour but I was expecting a kick in my tastebuds, we ate at many more places and it was the same thing. I like it when I think something and then I am pleasently surprised by the true authentic experience of it.

We were over enthusiastic to think we could fit Belem in too on the way back, we just looked at it as our train passed by. The view from the train is beautiful and you get a good idea of the coastline from this vantage point.

A little afternoon siesta was much needed and then we were back up on our feet looking for a good eating spot. We went to Sacremento in Chiado; I really loved this spot, beautiful modern decor, attentive waiters and delicious food, it all went down so well with the local bottle of wine we ordered.

Day Three:

Shopping shopping shopping, Lisbon is very affordable when you are coming from Copenhagen and so we took full advantage, a good 2 hours was spent in Zara alone. We off loaded our parcels and headed back out to catch tram 28, this came highly advised on trip advisor. I was disappointed and nauseous, the tram driver was unhelpful and after 30min we ended on the other side of Lisbon after a journey that was interrupted, crammed and bumpy. We had to wait 15min to catch the same tram back along its same route, we decided to take it up to St Georges castle which was our original plan but because there are no announcements, its hard to figure out where to get off. My advice is, grab the tram behind Mundial Hotel, take it up the hill and when you see the ocean and a white umbrella deck restaurant overlooking the ocean; GET OFF, this is the best stop, the rest of the journey is not pleasant and you can barely see everything out the window. By this stage we were famished; we shared a sandwich and drinks at Portas do Sol and lapped up the phenomenal view and slivers of afternoon sunlight.

the white umbrellas

We found st Georges castle easily and strolled around the outskirts, we made our way down very easily back to Rossio square, my sweet tooth was hammering at my brain to satisfy its sugary needs and I could not leave Lisbon knowing I had not tasted their traditional custard tartlets, so we stopped at Casa Brasileira on Rua Augusta at a popular patisserie and restaurant, warm heaters and chairs lined the centre aisle of the street and we took residence there. An enthusiastic and surprisingly quick handed waiter served us cappuccinos and deserts; we had a pumpkin fritter and a custard tartlet in two varieties, one traditional and one with pine nuts.

My happiness

My patisserie delish

 Everything was scrumptious. For dinner; we went to a local establishment called Licorista...something or another . I had fried sardines for the first time in my life, how appropriate to bite into these delicious little fishies in Lisbon. Some white wine went down well with our meal. The ambiance was cosy and local and it was a great send off for our last dinner in Lisbon.

Overall, Lisbon is now in my top three destinations, the city has so much to offer its visitors. Prices are affordable all round; and what I love about Lisbon is you don't fee like you have been taken advantage of, the locals are all around and eat and shop at the same places so they are willing to pay those prices too. I have often found cities have tourist traps and you always need to go in search of some neighbourhood/back street local joint to get value for money. Lisbon differs in this respect.

If there were some negatives to be mentioned it would be two things; i am a realistic traveller and will always paint in colour but I do like distinguishing between the black and the white too.

1. when you walk past restaurants, every single one of them have a waiter perched outside for attack, they all want you to eat at their restaurant and are eager to pull the tourists in. It can get very annoying when you are trying to have a romantic stroll.

2. every ten minutes some shady character will come up to you and offer you hash or cocaine(day and night). They slide up to you like snakes and whisper in your ear, or worse yet, they actually touch you to get your attention. After three days we were still not used to it and it really was the one thing that exasperated me and my partner as it happened too often to ignore. It happened mainly on the main streets as this is where the tourist hives are.

Otherwise, Lisbon is a true must see

OBRIGADO

Door at Pena Palace

Trainee buyer Work Back Agreement

I really didn't want to blog about this...but it seems my heart is shoving my head out the room and typing freely at will. The following message goes out to all the wannabe buyers and planners out there that find themselves with a piece of paper needing a signature, a signature that you really don't feel that comfortable signing; THE WORK BACK AGREEMENT.

I have been in this position and managed to get out albeit a few scratches, but my heart goes out to the Bambi eyed fashion lovers out there who just sign anything to be part of something.

In South Africa, I worked at one of the top fashion houses, I will not be mentioning names. As a young and naive, eager, bright eyed fashionista... Buying was just up my alley and so I applied to be a trainee buyer.

I went through a series of interviews, three to be exact. They wanted me and I wanted to be there.

I felt so fortunate to be given the opportunity to be selected as a trainee buyer, in my third interview, HR mentioned there was a work back agreement, I was barely listening and at that point I would have signed my life over just to get the position.I was going t be a trainee buyer at the top fashion company in South Africa, nothing could deter me. The new group of freshly hired trainees had a big surprise, we would be the first group to sign a work back agreement, as with the previously hired group of newbies; this had never been the case.

Big Mistake, always read the fine print, always be sure you know what you are signing.

Companies implement work back agreements for various reasons, in my opinion in this case, there were tons of people applying for the position, companies invest a lot of time and money with new trainees and the last thing they want is for you to take the knowledge and go somewhere else, e.g their competitors. They are investing in you and so they want their investment back; d.o.u.b.l.e.d.

Some companies do not implement this work back agreements and usually just put a prevention clause in place, that you may not work for a competitor within a certain period of time after you leaving the company; semi understandable if the time constraint is acceptable.

Work back agreements can take various shapes and forms, some say that once you become an actual buyer, you need to work back all the years of training and it can take up to 2 years to become a second level buyer, so you are not even a senior buyer at this stage. It will begin to feel like you are stuck, that you cannot leave and if you do...they will take everything you worked so hard for.

Bottom line is that the company wants their investment in you to stay put, there is usually a period of 6/7 months whereby you can freely leave in the beginning, but over and above that period you are stuck like velcro. If you choose to leave, you will need to pay back all your training costs and your accumulated salary back to the company - no matter what training they supplied (could be very little, for example, shadowing a real buyer is not necessarily training, it is shadowing that person so that you can learn from them, fully fledged buyers do not get paid extra money to take you on as a trainee). So as for the training costs, the company will probably come up with some ridiculous amount of money that needs to be paid back to them and when you ask for a breakdown as to how they came to this amount, well ...there is no breakdown. It is their way of catching you in their develish and greedy web and it is a scary web, its a huge company with a huge reputable name against little old you.

I am not even sure, if the whole work back agreement is legit, well it must be because companies need to follow legal procedures, but the fact is that it is a form of bullying you and sapping you of all you have by using intimidation and signature/contract control techniques to get you to stay.

Without going into to much detail, make sure you check the following points.

• If you are not sure that buying and planning is for you in the first place, the last thing you want is to be stuck with a company, miserable or leaving and paying them back everything you earned.
• Make sure you read the fine print and understand what you are signing from the start
• Ask questions and then ask more questions
• If you are brilliant; why not challenge them and say that you will not sign, it is a risk but if you have the ball's ...go for it
• Do not be overwhelmed by the glamour and glitz, if it sux...you are going to be stuck and miserable, chances are you are just starting out and would never be able to pay back a company because you wanted out.
• Don't let them bully you
• Speak to a lawyer and get them to look at the agreement, remember it is an agreement, if you did not receive adequate training (courses, development sessions, manuals,...) then you didn't get trained so the agreement becomes void because most work back agreements agree to train you to perform. Also, question the training you received, was it all in house? , did they fly you somewhere? did they pay for lectures and practical sessions? 
• I am in full agreement that if a company spends money on you and your development and you decide to bail for greener pastures with the wealth of information imparted to you, well then you owe them.

Just don;t get starry eyed and say you will worry about it later, ask yourself the questions that matter and don't get stuck in the corporate web.

Good luck to all the trainees out there, i hope you keep your head screwed on, your eyes on the prize and steady on your stilletto's.

European Door Art

I started a fascination with beautiful ornate doors when I moved to Europe, through my travels this year, I was able to find and capture some amazing pieces of what I call an art form.

From Ibiza, to Prague, Sweden to Paris, Barcelona to Poland... each door has a story to tell...

SUSPENSION of life.. Prague

As a walked through the intertwining pathways in the heat of the European sun, my tour guide rambled on about King Charles the fourth...my mind drifted and  I couldn't help but have a big smile on my face...

How good is this? I said to the Italian that had joined us... and I will never forget his words as he fumbled to find the right way to say what he felt..." It its ...suspension of life" I asked what he meant already knowing the answer but wanting to hear him explain in his slightly broken English. Its life, but the suspended one, it takes you higher, a little faster and the view is better. I could not agree more.

Life in itself is a blessing , but when life is better than good... I am suspended, and by suspended I by no means restrained, if anything I am lifted to a euphoric state, absorbing the pleasures of my state, knowing that it will settle back down and this can't last forever.

Prague was my Suspension of Life

Winding street, cobblestones creating click clack noise as the cars and hooves of horses clamber onwards, the smell of beer, the castle shadowing the city, the coolness of the air as you walk over Charles Bridge and see the shimmer on the Vltava river, you so badly want to dip into it and really submerse yourself in this jewel of a city.

The river is crossed by 18 bridges but the most fascinating would have to be Charles bridge, at each section there are sculptures, some speak of horror, others of delight but the bridge in all its glory is a tourist haven.

In the four days I was there, I managed to cram enough to walk away and feel pleased and satisfied with my endeavours but still feel relaxed.

Our first day was a walk along the bridge as the sun set, a hot air balloon sweeped the skyline, the water still, and the eve palmy...it was an exceptional start and welcome.

A delicious Italian meal with some spectacular wine set off my visit into a great culinary experience. Prague like other Northern european cities are known for their starch based meals, cabbage, pork, dumping, meat and beer. Not exactly my idea of indulgence but dig in and you will find it all too pleasing.

If I made a list of what needs to be seen and you must do: this is it

• a beautiful eve deserves a beautiful view, go up to Petrin hill by tram, pack a picnic or jut grab a beer at the garden cafe, go up Pragues baby version of the Eiffel tower and get an al round view of Prague, take a stroll down, as the walk is short
• Charles bridge; just go and maybe get a sketch done
• Vltava river paddle, grab a paddle boat in the early morn or late afternoon especially in summer for 120 czech per boat and that gives you an hour which is just enough
• Thai massage, if you are feeling the burn and your feet are crying out after all the waling, grab a thai foot massage, short but effective
• A vintage ride through the city is a must, we got a Jerry, an enthusiastic and accommodating driver. We were picked up outside our hotel in a red vintage, champagne awaiting , as we swirled through the streets our first stop was the ...
• John Lennon wall represents freedom, it was started by the youths of the city and still carries on today, Original graphic art is long gone but every few years new ones are sprayed, truly something to see
• A stone throw away from the Lennon wall is the love lock bridge, I try and find one of these every place I go, Poland, Paris and now Prague. Grab a lock, write you and your loved ones name in, try and find a spot to lock it and then throw the key in the stream, now ur in love forever
• Avoid Kampa restaurant, over priced and the service is terrible, try Minstral Cafe for their goats cheese salad or The School for an awesome Ceaser salad or Arrabiata pasta...awesome!!!!
• Try an old pub, great spots just below the castle, grab a traditional czech beer and avoid the Pilsner, you wont regret it. A meat platter is also a great idea.
• Tour of the castle and surrounding areas is  a great way to get some history behind this amazing city, we got the four hour one which was adequate by a long shot
• The castle is a must see
• All over the city you will find some great art, look out for works by the controversial, David Cerny, the revolvers are my favourite
• I tried the fruit dumplings but if you don't like doughy foods, avoid avoid avoid
• Inferno restaurant was a highlight, Angelina and Brad have been here for dinner :) Summer months it is quiet, we almost had the whole restaurant to ourselves. TRY the duck....wow, the romantic moody colours combined with the cave walls create an intense atmosphere but in a good way
• p.s Don't get ripped off by a taxi, always check there is a meter or negotiate, they are dodgy
• The astronomical clock...enough said
• A drink out, go to the James Dean bar r just wander the street, your gonna get dragged i somewhere amazing, and go balls to the wall and have yourself a absinth

Graffitti

Quite a view on the hill of the castle

Minstral cafe...fantastic

Absinth :)

Our little vintage ride

A birthday dinner at the castle

So basically what I am trying to say is GET YOUR ASS TO PRAGUE, and experience a holiday like no other. It is affordable by European standards, beautiful and well, its just gonna steal your heart.

a Meat platter at a local pub

red roses in the Kings garden

The astronomical clock

John Lennon wall

A Ceaser salad at The School