I've just come back from an amazing holiday in Lisbon, and i'm immediately writing about it because part of me wants to relive it one last time!

Day 1

Our flight got in about 12:30pm and we managed to get our luggage and hop onto the metro to Rossio station and BeHotel Lisbon by about 2pm, where we were greeted by a two fantastic receptionists, who immediately offered us a custard tart and a small glass of port. After carrying some heavy bags, it was just the pick me up we needed before we settled into our rooms and did some quick research about what to see next. Our hotel room was perfectly clean and air conditioned and I would definitely recommend staying at BeHotel

We set off around 3pm and visited São Jorge Castle in the Old Town area. Immediately we saw the lovely quaint cobbled pavements and streets. Next stop for dinner was the Time Out food market which we'd seen on BBC's food show: Rick Stein's Long Weekends. Big up Rick!

*Salt Cod with a generous helping of tasty greens of some sort!*

*The best custard tart I had in Portugal!*

Day 2

We decided to go to Cascais, a little picturesque seaside resort, about 45 mins train ride from Lisbon. The streets are so pretty with pastel coloured houses and shops and amazingly patterned cobbled streets. My partner and I immediately wanted to jump into the sea because of the heat and sun and we found a nice little beach. The water is cold because it is the Atlantic ocean, but refreshing none the less! It's not the most beautiful beach, but did the job of ticking that box for a summer holiday requirement, if you know what I mean. After a couple of hours at the beach we decided to leave around 6pm, but there were issues with the train line which didn't get fixed until about 8pm! We decided to chill at a local bar with a sangria whilst we waited, but that wasn't an issue for us!

By the time we got back to Lisbon it was about 9pm, and we decided to ring up the hotel for a restaurant recommendation. They suggested Populi which is on the commercial square. We were a little bit worried that the restaurant was in such a prime location that it couldn't be that good, but it was! We had a Portuguese version of paella, with king prawns and grouper fish. The seafood was cooked to perfection. The prawns and grouper had this fresh seafood sweetness to it and was not overcooked at all. The main difference in taste to paella is the coriander, which adds a freshness to the dish. The portions were generous, which was what we needed given it was so late and we were absolutely famished!

Day 3

We went to Belem, which is a couple of overground train stops from Lisbon, where we visited the Monastry, a UNESCO world heritage sight. The cathedral was impressive (although not as impressive as the La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, not sure anything could top that). Then we walked through the gardens of an art gallery before reaching the Monument of Discoveries. After that, we went to see Belem tower which looked stunning in the sea. If you don't like crowds, you may want to avoid getting on the rooftop as there is only one single file staircase, and there was no one controlling the flow of crowds on the roof. This meant that too many people got onto the rooftop and I started to mildly panic that the roof wasn't designed to take that many people's weight! Before i truly started to panic, people stopped coming up which meant we could all file out way back down!

Dinner was at a restaurant called Taberna which I had discovered on some blogs. After confirming with TripAdvisor we decided to give it a go. We had to go on a waiting list which lasted about 40 mins. Despite great reviews, we didn't feel it lived up to the over-hype. Just because something is trendy and appears different doesn't mean that it's amazing. Out of the 3 dishes I was only pleased with one. We then spent the evening in two very trendy rooftop bars in Bairro Alto. The first one was called Park where you enter through the ground floor of a car park and reach the top for good views of the city. The second bar was called LostIn again with an amazing view of the city . The nightlife in Lisbon is definitely very relaxed and trendy.

Day 4

Again we hopped onto an overground train, this time to visit Sintra. The Pena Palace was the castle we wanted to visit, but there are several castles and palaces to choose from, although if you went to all of them, you'd end up spending well over £100 in entrance fees. Pena Palace is the most colourful one and is perfect for photographs. The grounds around Pena Palace were also impressive and you could easily spend over 2 hours there. Not entirely convinced we needed to get the ticket to go inside the palace, as the ground ticket got you to a lot of the balcony areas of the Pena Palace, where you could take amazing photos.

On our last night, we had to go for the famous Portuguese chicken and chips at BonJardim back in Lisbon. It didn't disappoint, although a basic meal, it was cooked well, the chicken was moist and the chili oil went with it perfectly. It totally hit the spot.