I was invited to speak on behalf of Crossmint. My talk was scheduled for 29th May (Wednesday) at 5:50 PM. It was going to be a Lightning talk, and I was set to speak about creating custom GPTs to mint NFTs (blog post here).
I decided to at least spend a few hours of my busy schedule to explore Lisbon and its beauty, and boy, did it not disappoint!
27th May, 2024 - Monday
My flight landed at around 11:30 AM in Lisbon. I booked an Uber to my hotel, which was around Parque Eduardo VII, the venue for Non Fungible Conference. I reached my hotel in less than 30 minutes, but my check-in was scheduled for 2 PM. I had 3 hours to kill before I could check into my room. I quickly looked for a nice place to get something to eat and found a small cafeteria in Amoreiras Garden, a park that was a 10-minute walk from my hotel.
On my way to the cafetaria/park, I stumbled upon this beautiful view. Although, this seems to be nothing special, the tree and the colour of its leaves made it so serene.
First photo captured in Lisbon
After basking in the views, I got some breakfast. It was a simple cheese and ham toast with some Pastel de Nata (also known as Pastel de Belém). Sadly, I did not take any pictures of my food. After breakfast, I wanted to walk back to the hotel's lobby and decide what to do. I still had around 2 hours to kill. On my way back to the hotel, I chose to take a different route, and again, to my surprise, I was met with some beautiful trees and buildings.
Lisbon's golden sunlight
After I reached the hotel's lobby, I looked for interesting places to visit in Lisbon that were in close proximity to my hotel. I found Castelo de São Jorge, an 11th-century hilltop Moorish castle with palace ruins. Since it was a hilltop castle, I had a notion that the views from the top would be amazing. So, I booked an Uber and went there. The ticket for entry costs around 7.5€ for people under 25 years old and 15€ for people over 25. I booked the ticket online to avoid a long queue at the entrance of the castle. My intuition was correct; there was a huge queue of people waiting to get their tickets and enter the castle. Since I had already purchased the ticket online, I could simply scan it and walk in with no wait time.
Right outside the entrance of the Castle
After you enter, you come across a small garden. The walls are short and made of uneven rocks, giving it a medieval look, which it truly has. Consequently, you have an incredible view of Lisbon's skyline, the ocean, and the traditional European buildings.
View from the top of Castle St. George
I decided to sit down, breathe, and spend some time experiencing the beauty in front of me. And just like that, 30 minutes went by.
Living life on the edge - quite literally
I decided to enter the interior part of the castle, which I believe were the palace ruins. In all four directions, there were stairs that took you up, each offering a