Portugal
Dear Portugal,
Your buildings of tiles are beautiful. Your food is fresh, simple, and absolutely delicious. Your people are passionate about history and culture and life. And I really enjoyed my time with you.
I took my first trip to Europe at the start of 2024 and it was to Lisbon, Sintra, and Porto Portugal. It took about 26 hours from Hawai`i in travel to get there with a stop in LAX, California and Heathrow, London so the farthest I’ve ever been, but was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get around in those major cities.
Just about everyone spoke English. So my studying of the basics were all I need of ola, por favor, obrigado/a and chao! Uber was so convenient and I could get a ride in those tourist cities within 2-3 minutes and for very reasonable prices. Everything was extremely affordable compared to prices in Hawai`i and it felt pretty safe.
In case you’d like to plan a trip, to Portugal, here’s what we did in our 5 days there.
Day #1: Food tour in Lisboa/Lisbon This was a highlight and I highly recommend. REad more about all of their food which was probably one of my favorite things about Portugal, HERE.
Day #2: All day tour w/ a guide to Sintra This was another highlight to get out of the city and see a palace, the beach, and the end of the old world This place was so gorgeous I had to write a whole other blog about it HERE!
Day #3: Train trip to Porto to explore the city. This took us about 3+ hours, but it was nice to explore a different area and it was nice to just wander the streets and stumble across great finds! Finding a chocolate shop next door to where we picked for lunch that I had research was my highlight here!
Day #4: WOW World of Wine in Porto and train trip back This was a recommendation for this city where we could easily split us and view the museums all in one cultural area that interested us and meet back up before the 3+ ride back. Of course the chocolate museum here was my top choice and highlight!
Day #5: Photo session in Lisbon & monuments____ This was a fun thing we did that I highly recommend to capture the memories, see more of it HERE on my “Moms’ Trip Blog” and then we slowly walked throughout the monuments area___. We found out it was unfortunately closed on Mondays, but a nice take it easy slow day to end a busy trip and the best find for me, was the Market Hall of food____ we accidentally came across!)
That was our week of Portugal in case you’re planning to go or wondering what to do, hope this helps and enjoy the photos below!
finding peace by piece
Having a few things planned and a few things unplanned, makes it an exciting trip of adventure and easy going relaxation. Find your balance of bustling city action, popular tourists attractions, and wandering about and stumbling into places the locals go.
Biggest tip for Portugal, go during what they call, “slow season.” That’s when we went and thought it was cold, 40 - 50 degree weather, it warmed up for us and the sun came out at 50 - 60 (praise God). They’re high season is April through November packed with tourists as a lot of people they said are now travleing to Portugal and the streets are crowded and you wait in lines for hours. We got reservations at all the good restaurants, didn’t stand in lines, and walked slowly through the open streets in January.
