When Ryan and I originally started thinking about our 2012 trip, we were set on Spain. However, at some point, we started to consider a combined Portugal and Spain trip. I still haven’t recapped our honeymoon, but when I do, I’ll share how tough it was to stay at so many different hotels. I love the convenience of staying in one place, but realistically that won’t ever happen on a trip to Europe. There are too many places to see and visit!
After a little discussion, we began adjusting our itinerary to fit in 3 nights in Lisbon, Portugal’s capital. I really didn’t (and still don’t) know too much about Lisbon, but I do know that it looks like San Francisco! Don’t believe me? Check out a few pictures (pictures found here, here, and here):
We’ve stayed in San Francisco a few times (usually we just do day trips or, more recently, I stay with friends) and there’s really a few areas I like to stay. One is by Union Square and the mall. The other is by the ferry building on Embarcadero. I’m sure there are tons of great places to stay, and there are restaurants and bars everywhere, but in my limited experience, those are my favorite. Since our Europe trip won’t be a “shopping” trip, I just figured we’d stay by the water. Turns out the downtown area (and the popular places to stay) aren’t near the water. I had a difficult time trying to figure out which city would be best. Chiado? Baixa? Bairro Alto? The names of the cities were being thrown around in forums we read, but without knowing which restaurants we wanted to try or which local attractions we wanted to be close to, it was hard to choose a city.
We decided to start out with our “wants” and see which types of hotels/B&Bs/apartments we could find. Here’s what our perfect accomodation would be:
- in an area with restaurants that are very close
- in a “cute” neighborhood
- close to bus/train stops so we can get around the city
- provides breakfast
- a smaller hotel – not a huge chain hotel, since we are staying in at least a couple of those in Spain
- has a pool
- has free (or cheap) wifi
- room with a view and/or balcony
- around 100 euros a night (in our research we noticed that we could get away without spending a ton in Lisbon)
After just a few days of seriously looking, we found and booked a room for our 3 nights in Lisbon! I found a place that looked promising and sent it over to Ryan. He loved it, so last night, we booked! We can cancel up to 15 days before our stay and pay no penalty at all. There was only one room left (the one we wanted) in this small, 3-room B&B in Baixa, so we jumped on the opportunity to book. Without further ado, here are some pictures of Orange 3 House:
The room was inexpensive (315 euros total), we have a view (see above), breakfast is included, free wifi, convenient location and a small hotel! So far, this seems like the perfect place for us. We may still look around a bit, but this is definitely the best we’ve seen!