Lisbon and Porto: A Taste of Portugal

With numerous family and friends having visited and raved about their Portuguese experiences, this was a country we had to go to. Also, pasteis de nata.

We took our deliberate avoidance of tours and famous sights to a new level in Portugal. This is on purpose, as we are almost two months into our trip, and we need to start relaxing a little bit (relatively-speaking) before plunging back into reality soon. However, we did take recommendations from a Portuguese friend very seriously, and devoted our time to walking and eating delicious things, primarily pasteis de nata. It is not possible to eat too many of these, and when walking 10,000 to 20,000 steps a day, we need their energy ;-)

We had a too short and sweet stay in Lisbon. We decided to base ourselves for longer in one place, so we chose Porto, based on blog-reading, and first-hand feedback and recommendations.

Ok, here is how our Portuguese travels rolled.

Lisbon

It was surprisingly difficult to get to Lisbon from Madrid by train. We would have needed to reserve much more in advance, which we were not in a situation to do. Our only train option was to take the Spanish train to the Portuguese border, wait overnight in the station for about 6 hours and then take the train to Lisbon. No could/would do, so instead we booked a direct, daytime 8 hour bus ride on Flixbus. It was direct, and a shorter trip than the train. Would we take this bus again between cities? For sure, it was comfortable enough, but it's important to make sure to be towards the front, or preferably at the very front is key because if the person in front of you reclines you are in trouble, that seat-back almost hits your face (this is no exaggeration, it happened to S, and we pushed the person's seat back up when they weren't sitting). Also, have toilet paper and sanitizer, just in case. The washroom did not have these amenities.

We arrived in Lisbon and caught an Uber to our place, which was really well located and within walking distance to many things. That night we ate at a restaurant downstairs (again, B had a waiter joke around with him), kids hung out in a part across the street, and off to bed we went.

The morning of our full Lisbon day we had lovely weather and hopped on a tram to head to Pasteis de Belem (thanks to our friend for the recommendation!!). We walked right in, got a table and ordered a couple of sandwiches, some coffees and juices and, of course, the pasteis de nata? How many did we get? It may have been 18, I will neither confirm nor deny. Did we eat them all in one sitting? I will confirm that no, we did not, but we could not leave this place without taking some with us for later. So. Delicious.

After our pasteis de nata experience we headed back into Lisbon and walked around the central part of town. Insert all the adjectives for how wonderful the look and vibe of it was. We strolled around for a couple of hours and then in the late afternoon light headed to the second destination recommended by our friend, the 7th floor of Hotel do Chiado where we got lovely views of Lisbon and had some drinks (thanks again to our friend for the recommendation!).

That is essentially all. I have no cathedrals or particular sights to mention, and that's ok. We needed to not have to do anything. We essentially strolled, took trams, ate and had relaxing drinks.

Porto

We settled into Porto for 3 days. Our arrival marked the first time we had poo poo weather. It's incredible the sun has followed us for a month and a half, apart from the on-and-off, fast and furious downpours in Barcelona. In Porto we arrived to very gloomy skies, high winds and heavy amounts of rain. It's ok, we settled into our apartment (which was so so, and check-in was weird...), cozied up with a movie (1980's Karate Kid, to be exact), and that was that.

The morning of our first day the skies were quite gray, but the rain was just a drizzle. Once again following our friend's recommendations, we decided to head out to a beach, weather be damned. Of course we weren't going to lie on it, but nature is beautiful in its many moods. We walked out to Foz along the riverbank. This is where the beaches begin at the mouth of the river Douro. This was an epic two-hour walk and by the time we got there in the misty weather with the solemn, vacant streets, we found a place to eat called Tavi. We hit the jackpot! Tavi had delicious food with vegetarian options, an awesome, enclosed sun room style patio, and a very jovial waiter that once again, started paying lots of attention to B. He even got him a wine bottle and tucked it under his arm as a joke. S got some delicious toast with egg and avocado, I got a savoury crepe, and Scott got... oops I don't remember. There's a picture. We also got some desserts. It was a lovely way to relax and look at the very misty beach from a comfortable spot.

We took an Uber back. The rain started to fall more heavily again and we did not want to walk back for another two hours.

Day two it was cool, but the skies began to clear! We jumped on a bus and just toured and sightsaw around the city on the south side of the Douro river. We then decided to do a little shopping, reasoning that we're near the end of our trip and Paris is going to be much more expensive for this. Porto is full of FABULOUS pedestrian streets, and we walked along it's most well-known, Rua Santa Catarina. That's all we did, walk and observe. In the early evening B got a haircut and highlights at a salon (they were SO nice, took us right away and she did such a great job!), and Scott did laundry while the kids and I got some dinner to take back to the place. That's all! A chill, no pressure day.

Day three in Porto consisted of more bus sight-seeing, walking and local recommendations. The weather cleared and Porto began to really shine. We saw the beach in the sunlight (not a beach visit, a drive-by) and walked along the Douro river and through many of Porto's lovely streets, both narrow and wide, all cobbled and unique. We ate lunch at an awesome place I wish we had in Canada called Honest Greens. Wow, such amazing food!! Later, the always photo-worthy evening light was lovely on the river and on the Douro's many bridges. We capped the day with our final recommendation and went to a bar/restaurant at the top of a hotel to have some amazing cocktails (mine had port and lemonade, among other mix-ins) and gelato for the S and B. Our friend, a former Porto local said it was a peaceful and incredible place to go, and that tourists don't know about it. She was right, it was just us and three other groups of locals, getting a bird's eye view of Porto. We felt so lucky to have this inside info and be able to get away from the bustle of the street level.

There it is, our few days in Portugal, full of strolling, varied weather and not nearly enough pasteis de nata. Up next, we head to France, our final stop on this two month family journey.