Portugal

Lisbon

Where we stayed: Living Lounge Hostel

Must try food: Portuguese tart

Must see spot: Sintra

Day 1: Walked around the streets of Lisbon trying to work off our “jet lag”. Had a great seafood dinner.

Day 2: Took a 45 minute train to Sintra for a day trip. This is a must if you come to Lisbon. Sintra is a very hilly spot with palaces, medieval walls, great hiking trails, wine tasting, and beautiful cliffs. A short trip from Sintra brings you to the western most point of continental Europe.

Day 3: Rented bikes and checked out the riverfront bike path. Took a ferry across the river to bike to the 80km (50 mile) beach. We ended up getting off at the wrong ferry stop so had an interesting 15km (9 mile) bike ride straight up an incredibly steep hill, but a fun time biking down. Once we finally made it to the beach it was totally worth it.

Note to anyone that does this. Make sure to get off the ferry at the Trafaria port!

That evening we had an amazing 10 euro dinner at our hostel: seafood stew with mussels, lobster, and shrimp, tomato bisque, beet and tomato salad, and unlimited wine. After plenty of wine, we went out with our new friends in the Bairro Alto neighborhood. This area in Lisbon has hundreds of very small bars, pubs, and clubs. Everyone parties in the street since you can have open containers everywhere in Lisbon.

Lagos

Where we stayed: Airbnb in Ameijeira

Must see spot: Cliffs at Ponta da Piedade and Meia Praia beach

Day 4: Picked up our rental car and drove 3 hours to the southern part of Portugal called the Algarves. There are many different beach towns you can visit. We decided on Lagos for its medium size, cheaper prices, and BEAUTIFUL beach.

Checked in to our shared Airbnb and took a hike to the cliffs on the Mediterranean. These rock formations reminded us of Cabo and were definitely worth the 30 minute hike from town. You could even climb to the top of one. Chad decided to be the picture taker while Lisa went for it. Picture 1 is zoomed in while 2 is zoomed out.

Day 5: BEACH DAY! Walked to one of the most gorgeous beaches we have ever been to. Such a relaxed beach town with many umbrella shops set up along the river. Without realizing, we set up shop on the beach right next to 3 topless European girls. We had our fair share of giggles given the mature adults we are.

Nazaré

Day 6: Began our 5 and half hour drive north to Porto with a pitstop in Nazaré. If we would have known how neat Nazaré was, we would have booked a night in this cute fisherman town. Nazaré is best known for getting some of the largest waves during the fall months, attracting lots of surfers from all over the world. While the waves weren’t huge while we were there, this was definitely not a beach we (or anyone else while we were there) was going to swim in with the massive undertow.

Porto

Where we stayed: Airbnb in the heart of Porto

Must try food/drink: Port Wine and Francesinha

Must see spot: Port wine houses, Majestic Cafe and Livraria Lello (if you are a Harry Potter fan)

Day 6 continued: Finished our drive to Porto, checked in to our new Airbnb, and grabbed a quick dinner before heading to bed…

…Discovered very quickly sleeping was going to be a bit difficult before 2am with the barbershop/bar located right below our room. In hindsight we should have gone and had a drink with them.

Day 7: PORT WINE DAY!! This is a day Lisa has been looking forward to for a long time. Spent the first part of the day walking around Porto. Everywhere you turn in the small, windy, hilly streets has something new to see. The city is filled with castles, impressive cathedrals, shops, restaurants, and tons of cafes/bakery’s.

JK Rowling also lived in Porto for some time so we stopped by the Majestic Cafe where she did a lot of her writing and the Livraria Lello which is an impressive bookstore where it is said she themed parts of Harry Potter after.

We eventually made our way towards the river and walked across the high level part of the bridge. We took a gondola down to where all the Port wine houses were located and had a fantastic time hopping from place to place trying all the wines.

Some of our favorite stops were Sandleman’s, Porto Cruz (which has a classy rooftop bar/restaurant we spent some good time at), and Calem. Another spot we heard was great but didn’t make it to was Taylor’s. For any of you winos’s like me, they had white and rose Porto as well -who knew?!

Day 8: Last day in Portugal. Caught up on some sleep, ran some errands (conditioner and lotion run out fast when using mini bottles), and went to one of the famous restaurants known for the Francesinha. Francesinha is a must while in Porto. This is basically a sandwich with ham, sausage, beef, covered in cheese, topped with an egg, smothered in a tangy, gravy sauce. Yes, if you are thinking it sounds like a heart attack on a plate, you are right. We were really regretting not paying the 10 euro per person to use the gym earlier in the day at this point, which we thought was out of our budget at the time.