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| Benagil Sea Caves, Algarve |
Portugal, stuck out on the Atlantic Ocean, is as far west as Europe goes. It’s small, it’s scrappy, it’s like Avis, it has to try harder, and it does, but then again, not that hard. It shouldn’t have to. Portugal was running the world in the 1400s and 1500s as I read in Conquerers. Portugal built big ships with terrifying commanders and sailed around Africa and into the Indian Ocean to steal gold and jewels and temples and women, and corner the global trade market. Now it's back and ready to capture tourism.
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| Porto at our feet |
Judy and I have been intrigued by Portugal since we listened to Peter’s study abroad friends in Madrid rave about it.
So we set on our own course of discovery to thoroughly see this little country.
And what do we think? It is "sharming," as the locals say. There is no word to which the Portuguese do not attach the sound sh or ch, or oosh.
I met Judy at the Four Seasons Ritz in Lisbon, and just as everything is beautiful at the ballet, everything is beautiful at the Four Seasons. It’s like landing on a great big pillow.
After lunch on the patio, we walked right into the heart of the beast, Baixa de Lisboa, down the tree-lined Rua de Augusta to the palace square, and the port that launched a thousand ships.
We stopped when we could walk no more and found a sofa and bar at a luxury car dealership with people using a conference room and some nice leather goods. We stumbled into this peculiar setting for some kombucha, but no one seemed to mind us. Thus restored, we tried to find the highly touted JNCQUOI for happy hour but we were walking in circles, up hills. The guide book says the labyrinthine streets are meant to confound invaders. Color me confounded.
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| Lisbon viewpoint |
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| Alexander and Isabelle |
But then, like a miracle, we saw an elegant couple in a tuk-tuk stuck in traffic. Judy recognized them from breakfast at the Four Seasons and so we asked if we could hop on and return with them to the hotel. They were Alex and Isabel, an Austrian pair taking a break from their teenage sons in Salzberg. They welcomed us and took us along on their stop at a top-10 Lisbon viewpoint, the north end of Avenida de Liberdad at the top of Edward VII Park.
Our first dinner in Portugal started strong with the concierge-recommended Lisboa a Noite. He told us that the Galician style octopus would melt in our mouths and it did. But just like the orange roughy, we became overfished during the trip and had to seek out other cuisine.
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| Edward VII Park, Lisbon |
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| Magic gardens, Quinta da Regaleira, Sintra |
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| Quinta da Regaleira, Sintra |
I had a brief morning walk in the glorious Edward VII. Then Nunu, our Portuguese tour guide, drove us to Sintra, which Franky described as one of the coolest places he had seen in Europe. It was a summer getaway for the royals and other rulers, high in the hills about half an hour from Lisbon. It is a fairy land of sorts, lush and lovely and overflowing with history and mystery. A tour of the famous Pena Palace meant standing in a line for an hour, a task not fit for these princesses. So instead, we wandered the grounds of the fantasy palace Quinta da Regaleira, a mix of Gothic, Renaissance and Manueline architecture, full of grottos and waterfalls and secret tunnels, conceived by an Italian opera set designer. Then we stopped for a bite at the Lawrence's Hotel (est. 1764), little knowing that Lord Byron Slept Here. Yes, The Lord Byron.
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| With Genesis at dinner in Lisbon |
We had dinner with Peter’s Madrid roommate, Genesis, at Solar dos Presuntos, a restaurant popular with the theater crowd. The restaurant featured hundreds of photos of celebrities on the wall all unknown to us except Ronaldo, the soccer player heralded as the country’s most famous individual. Even topping Vasco de Gama.
In another serendipitous scenario, my dear friend Karen and her husband Chip were in Portugal at the same time we were, on a similar itinerary, and damned if we weren’t on the same train to Porto in the same carriage. Stop it!
We ate with them in Porto at Escama, a classy new restaurant where they presented the menus rolled up in a bottle of sand (message in a bottle). With an overlay of great conversation, we ate turbot and a deconstructed Caesar salad, and a banana split.
Our hotel in Porto was a disappointment. We should have known that any step away from the Four Seasons would be a step down, but we didn’t expect it to be so steep. The Intercontinental Hotel Porto failed to disclose is that it is situated on an enormous hole-in-the-earth construction project
. The hotel restaurant, the Astoria, served a watery mix of butter and milk posing as Vichysoisse; and egg(s) Benedict served on white bread, and smothered in Velveeta.
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| Vila Nova de Gaia |
We set out like mini conquerors to take Porto, starting with the six-bridges boat tour of the Rio Douro, and then walked from Porto to the other side of the river, Vila Nova de Gaia. This place is like the Red Sea, swimming in Port tasting bars, port casks, and caverns, wine school, wine tasting, and the assorted bloody detritus of red wine. It is not a place for white couches or white pants.
We had been advised to see WOW, a collection of museums, galleries, shops, and restaurants. In our aimless wanderings we found a small WOW sign and then a helpful stranger directed us, saying it was close to his hotel, The Yeatman. When he raved about it, we made it our sole purpose to switch hotels. We tried to preview the Yeatman, but it’s a heavily fortressed affair atop a maze of hills and tiny medieval streets. We could not penetrate the castle walls. We tried everything, pushing bells to open gates, climbing every staircase, and finally walking under some ropes into a private party.
It was almost as hard to get out as it was not to get in, but we were rewarded with an Uber driver playing Fred Astaire. Heaven. I’m in heaven.
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| FC Porto celebration |
Our second night in Porto proper was not without its fun. The hotel had left a letter advising that “FC Porto has a very important match that can result in the celebration of the national championship. Given the high profile game, in case Porto wins, some celebrations may be expected late Saturday evening…We do not estimate major impact on access to the hotel or traffic constrains.” In an effort to face less fish, we went for Italian at Trattoria 179, where the game was on television, and Porto won! We found extended irrational exuberance on the plaza.
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| Livraria Lello Bookstore |
The next day in Porto we went on a tour in a Tuk Tuk that was about to break down, and watched our guide Carlos deftly drive around hordes of tourists to get us to the Monsteiro da Serra do Pilar. We had an odd brunch at Zenith which featured “toasts,” a pile of chicken on bread, again covered with cheddar cheese.
We went to the famous Livraria Lello bookstore, which requires a ticket and a wait. It was jammed with people pretending they were in a Harry Potter movie. That night we went to hear the beloved, tragic Fado music at Casa de Guitarra.
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| Mother's Day at The Yeatman |
We moved into The Yateman on Mother’s Day and treated ourselves like the Queen Mother. Poolside lunch with fries and chips, massages, naps, fluffy white bathrobes. The Yeatman was well worth the transfer, it was deluxe and beautiful with sweeping views of Porto from every angle.
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| View from The Yateman |
The next day we rented a car and set out on our journey to Coimbra. The roads are modern, easy and empty. We checked into the Quinta das Lagrimas where the doormat reads “since 1326.” They took one look at us and upgraded us to the royal suite. You can’t set foot in Coimbra without hearing about the tragic tale of Pedro and Ines whose star-crossed romance resulted in her murder (as the concierge said, it is not as sad as Romeo and Juliet because only one person dies). Pretty sad though, that’s why the castle's name is lagrimas (tears) and why the fountain water runs red. They say.
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| Caped at University of Coimbra |
But the main event there is The University of Coimbra founded in 1290, a sprawling institute of higher learning where students still wear the traditional black and white uniforms with capes, and take their oral exams in Throne Hall in a 15th century castle. There is even an “academic prison” that was in use until 1832. This school must be hard to get into but even harder to get out of. We toured the wildly Baroque Joanine Library, with 60,000 volumes from the 16th to 18th centuries, and St. Michael’s Chapel decorated in the 17th century. We had dinner at a smart little restaurant called Sete.
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| St. Michael's Chapel, Coimbra |
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| Nazare |
Then we made our longest drive to the Algarve coast with a break for lunch in Nazare, a little beach town that is compared to the Coney Island of Portugal. The carneys were already practicing their wares, hustling us into a beachfront restaurant where I learned that shrimp cocktail didn’t have shrimp, crab instead, and is a soupy tomato concoction with the tiny bits of fish floating around. But Judy loved her grilled sardines and I passed on eating barnacles which I only know as a mild oath on Sponge Bob.
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| Algarve |
The Algarve coast is 100 miles of beautiful sandstone cliffs and beaches. We stayed at the luxurious Ocean Suites at Pine Cliffs Resort in Albufeira. We were puzzled to find that our suite would not have an ocean view. But the size made up for a lot, two bedrooms, two baths, a living room, and a kitchen with a single unit washer dryer, well needed by day 10 of a trip. The Falesia Beach below the resort is accessed by elevator. I felt that I was on the wrong side of the Atlantic. A Maine friend used to look at the ocean and say if you looked hard enough you would see Portugal.
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| Cliff Pines Resort, Albufiera |
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| Falesia Beach |
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| Deck at Cliff Pines Resort "Ocean View" suite |
Our last day in Portugal was packed as tightly as a can of sardines.
We started the day with a two-and-a-half-hour speedboat ride (The Algarve Experience) to see dolphins and the caves along the coast. The boat was so small and went so fast that it was like a galloping horseback riding at sea. There was an adorable biologist on board with an octopus tattoo on her upper thigh, who told us lots of fun facts about dolphins, how they eat and drink and give birth and how they sleep, turning off one half of their brain. Just like Severance!
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| Temple of Diana, Evora |
To get our sea legs we decided to sit down at a dockside café Tasca Portuguesa where we had calimari in the form of fish sticks, and a double espresso for our road trip to Evora. This little town is like a historical concentrate, where you can see a Roman temple, a Moorish castle, and a grand cathedral, all within a five-minute walk from the town plaza. If ever you need to speed through a place, Evora is for you. We stopped for a gelato at Fabrica dos Gelados and ate outside on the ancient streets.
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| Salted cod |
In Lisbon we had to race to have COVID tests in a makeshift clinic in an airport parking lot. At the rental car we asked for a cab and were directed outside to a car that was running but had no driver. When we looked in the back seat we saw an unattended young boy. Eager to use one of the few Portuguese words I exclaimed “menino, menino.”
Once we got the “negativo” results we decided to celebrate with red meat at dinner at the Holiday Inn Express Lisbon Airport. I ordered a hamburger and Judy enjoyed a pencil thin steak and we transitioned into Americans and collapsed into hysterical laughter about our three-cities-in a 12 hour-day, and the whole damn DIY trip.
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| Benagil Sea Caves |
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