Portugal: March 20-27, 2018

Portugal

March 20 - 27, 2018

 

 

Population: 2018

All of Portugal - 10,301,036

 Lisbon - 517,802 

Porto - 249,633

Cascais - 36,436

Sintra - 26,193

Our Itinerary: Day 1: Lisbon

Day 2: day trip from Lisbon to Sintra, Cabo da Roca & Cascais

Day 3: Explored Lisbon (St. Jorge's Castle) & Convent Carmo

Day 4: 3-hour train to Porto from Lisbon

Day 5: Explored historical Porto

Day 6: Back in Lisbon & day trip to Belem

Day 7: Day trip to Obidos from Lisbon

Day 8: Back to Moscow to find out if we were PNG'd (we were not)

Our home for 6 nights out of 7 in Portugal - The Hotel Avenida Palace - LOVED it! Very elegant and charming with a wonderful breakfast.

So lovely...

The room where they have musicians playing at night

Even the staircase is lovely! Peek-a-boo!

The hallway to breakfast. Our first morning here Craig dropped one of the buffet serving spoons and I bumped the table spilling both our teas...we're so clumsy!

 The room we walked through to get to breakfast every morning.

Rua Augusta Arch: a triumphal arch on Praça do Comércio. It was built (1755 - 1873) to commemorate the

city's reconstruction following the 1755 

earthquake. It's a beautiful large touristy square.

The Santa Justa lift (elevator) was completed in 1902 to make it easier for the locals to get from the lower streets of the Baxia district to Carmo Square. Since it's completion, however, it's become quite a tourist attraction

Created before the 18th century by Catholic monks at the Jeronimos Monastery of Belem. They're a creamy (kind of like custard) egg tart pastry. Apparently the main ingredient is egg yolks, but it definitely doesn't taste like eggs. You will see them all over the country - the best apparently in Belem where they originated, but that's a matter up for debate. In 1834 the monastery was closed and the recipe was sold to a sugar refinery, whose owners in 1837 opened Fabrica de Pasteis de Belem. We found the ones served at our hotel for breakfast were the best with a little cinnamon added on top! These monks were originally based in France... can they still be found in France? I don't know...?

Craig enjoying his first of MANY pasteis de nata.

  On our way to Sintra by train

 Pena Palace, Sintra

I was pretty darn excited to arrive at Pena Palace, I'm not gonna lie. Princesses love palaces after all! 👸This one looks like something from a Disney theme park, but it's legit from 1854! 
We arrived when it opened (that morning, not in 1854), which I highly recommend (way less people) so we managed to tour around the outside of the palace with relative ease. By the time we were through the inside the tourists had arrived in droves. 

According to tradition, the construction began after an apparition of the Virgin Mary.

In 1838, King Ferdinand II acquired the old monastery, surrounding lands and nearby Castle of Moors. He then began constructing the palace that served as the summer residence of the Portuguese royal family.

It was declared a national monument in 1910 and in 1995 it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Before we arrived here I had seen a photo (on the internet) of a woman who sat on top of the pillars with her feet dangling over the edge, but the pillars were angled down and I didn't want to die.

The detail above that archway was incredible. Not exactly welcoming with the scary creature, but beautiful nonetheless. Look at that, not a tourist in sight! Not possible about an hour from when this was taken.

Craig's the king of the castle (palace)! 🤴

 

There's that entryway again!

Beautiful arches at the back of the palace with gorgeous views of the city below and the Moors Castle off to the right (not seen in this photo).

No people again... excellent!

 Oh no I'm falling! I couldn't squeeze my ass in that little dip, so that's the best I could do! 👸

View of Moorish Castle as seen from Pena Palace... priceless

Loving the tiles again!

Inside the royal bedroom. Incredibly beautiful work on the walls and ceiling; and that bed... gorgeous!

Can we do that to our ceiling at home Craig?

View from the royal balcony

Gotta have the cubbyhole shot of the palace!

The Moorish Castle

You`re the king of this castle too baby!

Making me the Queen, of course!

I fit in this one... barely!

View of Pena Palace from Moorish Castle

Below is Quinta da Regaleira estate is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located near the historic centre of Sintra. The property includes a romantic palace and chapel, a lovely park with lakes and even grottos, wells, fountains and structures such as the one below. The palace itself was under construction in the upper floors, so we were only able to quickly walk through the ground floor.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!

 The Initiation well (below) on the estate - AMAZING! I had seen this online before we even moved to Moscow and it was on my "must see" list. Check! ✔

SO happy we were able to see this truly unique place. It would have been better to get there early to beat the crowds, but we were at the Pena Palace earlier... couldn't be in both places early. Both really are a must see. It is smaller around than I was expecting, but we loved it!

The 27-metre (88 foot) deep initiation well (a.k.a. inverted tower) never served as a source of water, but rather for secretive initiation rites (said to be linked to tarot mysticism and masonic principles)!

So cool!

As I was standing there (listening to the Russian tour guide drone on and on) I was getting dripped on from above.

The view from the very bottom of the well

  The grotto below the well... watch your step, that's water under the algae! 

The Regaleira Palace

   Below: Cabo da Roca - the Western-most point in Europe. It was just a wee bit windy! 🌬

  From here we waited for a bus (we waited a while and when it finally did come people were rudely pushing and shoving to get on = not pleasant) to Cascais, which we weren't all that impressed with, but we did have a great dinner at an Italian restaurant and ended up chatting with another Canadian couple from Ottawa then took a train & metro back to Lisbon. Our 12-hour tour was awesome, but tiring.

The next day... St. Jorge's Castle overlooking Lisbon

You have a LOT of castles dear!

Me and another one of my arch window shots!

I found it really weird to see these very modern cube houses among the old architecture. Reminded me of Rotterdam!

While up in this arched window I actually had an uneasy feeling and could picture in my head a scene of someone pushing me off to my death.  😨

There were at least 3 peacocks on the property of St. Jorge's castle... this one was pretty cheeky blocking the entryway to the restaurant.

Sausages from a market by the bus station when we returned from St. Jorge's Castle... he didn't like them and ended up giving them to a homeless man.
Does Craig look like a druggy to you? I don't know how many times (several) he was asked if he wanted hash, cocaine, or marijuana. Once he hesitated like he was thinking about it... big mistake as the guy followed us for a bit after trying to convince him to buy some.

Had to take the funicular... we had purchased a bus/metro combo ticket, so it didn't cost us any extra and was neat to do.

At the top and ready to explore Convent Carmo

Convento da Ordem do Carmo (former Roman-Catholic convent) 1393. The 1755 earthquake destroyed yet another amazing heritage building... That earthquake did a LOT of damage to most of Lisbon.

There's 2 of these 16th century Peruvian mummies in the convent museum. I cannot seem to find information on what happened to them.

Cork store in Lisbon where I enjoyed finding my new purse (below)! 👜

A couple of many cute, narrow streets in Lisbon

Dinner @ "Mili" on a very obscure little street in Lisbon followed by a haircut by a guy from Nepal of all places! Our meal was cheap and tasty and the owner is very sweet. It rates highly on TripAdvisor too. It feels like you're at their house for dinner.

During and after his 10 € haircut!

My new earrings kinda match the tile!

This is the train station we arrived to in Porto. Quite beautiful. Porto is the 2nd largest city after Lisbon and is located along the Duro river estuary in Northern Portugal. As of 1996 its historical centre is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We had the rest of the day without rain, but that night walking to dinner there was an absolute downpour on us. ☔ Craig picked that time to take the long way to the restaurant (he got lost)!

Rua da Santa Catarina... the busy pedestrian where our Porto hotel was located

Our hotel for 1 night in Porto: The Grande Hotel do Porto (opened its doors in 1880). It was quite nice on the lower level, but the rooms feel more like a dorm room. Still, a great location to stay for the night.

The cute corridor leading to the dining room for breakfast

Clergios Tower of Clergios Church (building completed 1750). The tower itself has 240 steps, which we, of course, climbed during our time in Porto.

A classic touristy photo!
 

Beautiful yellow and white tiles of Porto... I think they were my favorite of all the tiles we saw in Portugal. Not ones you could have on your floor, but it makes for very tactile and cheerful walls!

Craig wanted to do a port wine tour. He had heard that Ferreria was the only Portuguese owned port winery left in Porto, so he wanted to do that tour. We crossed the river and walked ALL the way over there, arrived to a bit of a line up and heard the tour was 16€ each, so he said "forget that, let's go". We headed towards the gondola to ride it back to the upper bridge (to save us some walking up). When the lady handed us our gondola ticket she said "behind the yellow building there's a free port sample", so we wandered behind the "yellow building" and couldn't see anything. We happened upon this small port winery (Quinta das Corvos) and asked them. They must get lots of people asking about this "free sample". An English tour had just started, so we decided to join in - for 5€ each. The tour was short, but good and at least one of us enjoyed the wine and port tasting afterwards. This is such a small winery and all their products are hand made with a manual bottling process producing an average of 40,000 bottles per year. "Port" is a Portugese wine produced exclusively in the Duro Valley region in the Northern Provinces of Portugal. The wine produced is then fortified with the addition of a "neutral grape spirit" known as aguardente in order to stop the fermentation. The wine is then stored and aged in barrels in a cellar. A white port can vary between pale, straw and golden white colours. It darkens as it ages. Red port can vary between red, golden red, golden and light golden colour. It lightens as it ages. The two primary styles of port are red port (with more berry and chocolate flavours) and tawny-coloured port with more caramel and nut flavours. Port should be served just below room temperature at 16 ℃

The different port colours (first two on left are white port and three on right are red port).

Ya, port is not my favorite. Craig enjoyed most of mine!

And then we finally got up in the gondola, but it had started to rain, so the photos of the historical port of Porto are a little gloomy.

Porto Cathedral in the rain

Our fancy dinner out (éLeBê Centro) after running in the rain to get there. This is a tempura scallop and it was really delicious!

The front facade of the Clergios Church - time to climb the tower!

View of the historical core of Porto from the bell tower of Clergios church with the impressive Porto Cathedral in the upper left corner.

 

Me behind bars in the bell tower!

So cute!

More lovely tiles... about 2 days in Craig was "enough with the tile photos"...nope

 

There is definitely no shortage of pastries in Portugal!

After getting caught in the rain the night before, my boots really needed a good polishing, so... this old guy did a pretty good job with what little tools he had.

The tile-side of a beautiful old church near our hotel

That's the Clergios Church again at the end of the street. Porto is definitely an interesting and  hilly city.

When we came back to Lisbon from Porto we could have just gone back to the same room we had previously, but when she asked if we would like a different room we said "yes" and she found us this interesting junior suite (a.k.a. bowling room).  She was such a nice young lady that when we were in Belem we picked her up some of the pasteis de Belem.

Ok, this looks like a circus or something, but it's actually a shop that sells fancy cans of sardines! Seriously! It was a little strange. We didn't buy any, but apparently its quite popular.

The tourist trap known as "Tram 28". I'm not quite sure what made this tram route so popular for tourists, but man it was super busy with people from around the world (very few locals) wanting to get on. We did it just to say we did, but afterwards we both felt it like it was no big whoop. You could have taken a ride on any tram in the city and had basically the same experience. It did go up to St. Jorge's Castle (but we had already been) and the end of the route takes you to an interesting cemetery (Cemetary of Pleasures or Campo Ourique Prazeres), but the rest in between... meh. 😕

 Well, there were a few interesting places along the way, but you didn't want to get off. Maybe if we had not already seen a lot of the city it would have been good... so I guess I'd recommend it for when you first arrive. The other thing is, you must get off the tram at the end of the route even if you just want to go right back to where you started. So you get off and then have to get back in a queue to get on and pay the fare a 2nd time (our 24 hour card was unlimited rides, so it was no problem for us). I feel bad for the poor locals who need to take this route because of how busy it is. One local lady was quite irate towards a Ukrainian tourist when she was sitting in the "elderly, disabled and pregnant lady" section.
If you're interested, there is a pretty good website describing things to see along the route:
http://thetravellingsquid.com
 

The cemetary at the end of tram route 28. This photos's for you Aunt Judy with the cats snuggling together in the heat of the sun.

Belem - a short tram ride from Lisbon

Beautiful  entry way to Santa Maria de Belem church attached to Jeronimos Monastery. Incredible detail!

The line up was insane to get into the monastery. We waited to get into the cathedral, but even that took a while because a service was about to start. It was free to get into the cathedral, but 10€ for the monastery. We didn't do it because of the huge lineup. As it was, we've seen so many cathedrals that I wouldn't wait in line again for the cathedral either, but it was a beautiful one.

Inside the cathedral

The Padrão dos Descobrimentos (monument to the discoveries) on the northern bank of the Tagus River estuary (where ships departed to explore and trade with India and the Orient). It's located in Belem not far from Lisbon and  it opened on Oct. 10, 1960 (you can go up to the view point at the top, but we didn't)

Belem tower or Tower of St. Vincent is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (building completed in 1519)

This is the shop where the famous egg custard pastry originated and the constant line up of tourists makes for a very profitable business I'm sure. We just had to try it to see if it was any better than anywhere else and the verdict for us is "no". It's just as good.

The Time Out market in Lisbon - it's a happenin' place, but it was just TOO busy for us to be able to get any food. It looked good though!

Another popular place, but not somewhere I'd ever go back to. A fish cake made of cod with a sour cheese. Craig didn't mind it, but it is too "fishy" tasting for me.🐟 

Craig trying the cod patty for the first time.

March 26th

Obidos - our last day 😢

Only an hour-long bus ride from Lisbon is the ancient, fortified walled town of Obidos! Population in the town itself is 3100 inhabitants. The castle there is now a pousada (an upscale hotel in an ancient structure).

Notice how there is absolutely zero safety measures on the left where anyone could easily fall to their death because the walkway itself is also very uneven. I love that stuff though because it absolutely wouldn't be allowed in Canada (there'd be all sorts of barriers - ruining the original appeal of the structure - and/or we wouldn't be allowed up there at all). I can't seem to find out when it was built... seems to be 15th/16th century, but I'm really not certain.

Behind me is a staircase... again, with no railings of course.

Just beautiful with the wall, the white-washed houses with flowers and narrow cobble-stoned streets. Perfectly charming.

Peek-a-boo, I see you Craig!

Where's Craig?

Zoomed in a little...he matches the terra cotta rooftops

There he is...I think he's holding on to the wall for fear of falling off! 😱

This part seemed a little iffy even for me. They at least tried to have some barriers here, but you could move them back and forth.

Some very thick walls!

A cemetery below - just outside of the walls

When in Obidos, you gotta try a Ginjinha (a sour cherry liquer) shot in a chocolate cup! Ginjinha or simply "Ginja", is a Portugese liqueur made by infusing ginja berries in alcohol and adding sugar together with other ingredients. It is served in a shot form with a piece of fruit in the bottom of the cup (VERY potent, let me tell ya; both the berry and the liquer).

An interesting tree as we walked around the little town. It's probably gorgeous with bright flowers in the summer.

Back in Lisbon... one of the many monuments

Our final dinner out in Lisbon at a highly recommended Italian restaurant called "La Vita e Bella". We enjoyed it.

Sadly, we do not have any more trips planned from Moscow as we are heading back home to Canada this summer. Portugal was a wonderful way to end this incredible journey that has been our lives here in Moscow.