Portugal stay #6 – a hot minute in Amsterdam
June 30th, 2019
No trip to Europe would feel right without a visit to our dear friends Pascal and Jose, so we made sure we had a long layover in Amsterdam to spend a day with them.
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Portugal stay #5 – near Lisbon
June 30th, 2019
We drove to “Quinta das Hortencias”, another little farm-stay about 45 minutes from the airport for our last night.
This place was also really nice. The host didn’t speak much English, and pretty much disappeared after letting us into our house, but the grounds and facilities were great. They had two swimming pools (a little chilly, but swimmable), chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, birds, peacocks, doves, turkeys and turtles. It’s too bad we only had one night because Sawyer would have lived a little more time with the animals.
We ate out for our last traditional Portuguese dinner, grilled piri piri chicken, grilled fish and stone soup. (Okay, I ate some of the chicken. These people really know how to handle a grill!)
Portugal stay #4 – Porto
June 30th, 2019
Thursday
We drove into Porto. Alyssa did an incredible job of navigating the narrow streets to our new apartment. Not even one accident!
Our new place was very cool. It had a walk-out balcony and large bedroom up a flight of stairs, with a trundle bed for Sawyer.
After we checked in, we met up for dinner with Rita, Gregg and Trudy. While most of the crew hung out with Sawyer at a nearby playground, Alyssa and I had a mission to cruise around the neighborhood to try to find a place for us all to eat. Our first choice restaurant, “Brick” was closed
(and continued to be closed every time we tried to go back throughout our stay), so we took their recommendation and headed through some of the narrow alleys to a small restaurant named “Miss O’vo” a few blocks down the street.
Friday
Slept in. I made a morning run to get cappuccinos and pastries.
Got tickets for hop-hop off bus while Sawyer spent some time at the park playground again. The bus was a double-decker with an open top, which sawyer was pretty excited about.
We rode down to the river and had a lunch with a view, then boarded an hour long “6-bridges” boat tour that gave us some of the sights of Porto from the water.
After our boat ride we went across the river to the area of Porto famous for it’s port cellars. We did a cellar tour of Cálam, which actually turned out to be cooler than I thought it would be. I was expecting a simple tasting at a counter, but it was actually a pretty elaborate set of interactive exhibits, which Sawyer liked a lot, a tour of the cellars, which had some pretty impressive giant barrels aging, and a tasting where we met a really nice couple and their daughter from Dubai.
Next we headed back to our neighborhood and hoofed it across town trying to find a nice spot for dinner. We failed a couple times at trying to get a spot at too-crowded popular restaurants, and hunger and weary feet led us to an outdoor seating place not far from a main square. Alyssa wasn’t totally thrilled with it, but my grilled fish was pretty Good
So it was a pretty busy day. Sawyer was s trooper all day, and we chalked it up to a win across the board.
Saturday
We dawdled around again in the morning and headed out late, hoping to get a spot at a restaurant we’ve had our eye on for lunch. Things got off to a rocky start with wrong restaurant opening times, not-good snacks, and a really really long bus ride to the Foz neighborhood.
We were a little deflated when we got to Foz, but it all turned around when we had lunch at Don Zefarino, where we had some mind-blowing grilled fish, and had a great rapport with our server Joseph. With spirits lifted, we spent some tome in the neighborhood, me walking to the (closed) marked, and Alyssa and Sawyer headed to the beach.
The beach, by the way, was beautiful. Super fine white sand as far as you could see and super clean. We found a little playground and bought some sand toys for Sawyer and hung there for a while. We probably didn’t spend as much time here as we would have liked, and we didn’t have our swim gear with us, which was too bad. I’ve made a mental note to go back next time I’m in Porto.
When we got back to our neighborhood, we decided to take it easy and just do a picnic dinner on our balcony. So we got some take-out sandwiches and chilled out for the evening
Sunday
Time to pack up and head to our next home! Nothing very notable about our morning of packing our bags, but…before we left town we did get a proper restaurant brunch. Oh poached eggs and proper coffee, how I missed you so!
Portugal stay #3 – Casa de Paleirmas
June 25th, 2019
Monday
Stopped in Setúbal on our drive and ate at a super cute little restaurant. The food was great and the €3 liter of wine was amazing!
Arrived at casa de palmeiras, Thais place is so cute and quaint and amazing. Lots of space to explore. Gardens, chickens, goats, ducks, guinea pigs and more! We ordered a ”delivery” dinner at our place. Helped with the evening feeding of the animals.
Tuesday
Ate out regular breakfast at home, fresh baked bread, homemade jams, cheese, fresh fruits
We spend most of the day in the nearby town if Viseu. We walked around the weekly market a bit. Then lunched at a curate little wine bar/tapas place near the cathedral.
2-hour Tuk tuk tour with Suzanne. We saw lots of historical sights and street art (mostly commissioned murals.) sawyer likes seeing the peacocks at the park.
Went home and fed the animals and helped milk the goats.
Wednesday
This was mostly relaxing day around the farm. Lots of laying around and reading. Sawyer spent a lot of time on the swing set and playing with his new friend next door, Joanna (age 7). Sawyer helped with watering the garden and planting some seeds. We did a quick drive to a nearby town (Nelas) for lunch and a small grocery run (well, mostly a wine run). This was a great, low-key day before heading out for more adventure the next day.
Thursday
Finished up our fresh bread/fruit/cheese breakfast and packed up the car to go to our next destination!
Road trip detour: “the Venice of Portugal “
We stopped half way in the town of Aveiro, sometimes called “Venice if Portugal” because if it’s canals and gondaleirs.
This was a pretty quick stop because we wanted to get to Porto before rush hour. We had a quick pizza lunch, then a 45 minute boat ride. This boat was nothing like the gondola ride in Venice like it was built up to be. The canals were wide and straight (and a little boring), and the boats, while quite pretty and shaped like an Italian gondola, were really big, holding up to maybe 20 people, and motor powered. Our guide was a young guy with a little too much pep and bad humor for the crowd. Maybe he was a little Day-drunk? Who’s to say?
Portugal stay #2 – Lagos
June 24th, 2019
Monday
We rented a car in Lisbon and drove with Rita and Gregg down to Lagos, a city in the Algarve region of Portugal. We had an apartment right on the ocean along the southern coast.
When we got there we were awe-struck with the place. It was a beautiful 4-bedroom apartment with a large deck and lawn-patio that overlooked what is arguably the most beautiful beach on the coast. Staying with us was Alyssa’s Family: Rita & Gregg, Paul, Renata, Olivia, Elena and Judy, along with the three of us.
We stayed in the rest of the evening and enjoyed each other’s company and our new home.
Tuesday
While everybody was waking up, Paul and Gregg made the trek into town to pick up some freshly baked pastries for everybody.
After breakfast, we all went out as a group and took a walk through the old-town of Lagos, where we sight-saw for a little while, and ate lunch and a nice outdoor restaurant on the sidewalk.
From there, we got our suits on and spent some time down on our beach. The one downside of our location was that the water was cooooooold! Really cold, but not cold enough that one wouldn’t dare go into it. Instead, it was just cold enough to try it, and then regret it.
In the evening after we all cleaned up, Judy volunteered to stay home with the kids while all of the siblings went out to dinner. We ate at “Los Artistis”, a Michelin recommended restaurant . The food was just fine in my opinion, but the company was great!
Wednesday
On this day we had a plan. Each family would be in charge of a dish for dinner, and we would walk down to the local fresh fish market in the morning to source our ingredients. So when we woke up, Gregg, Paul, Renata and I walked down to the fish market to pick up our ingredients. Gregg got an octopus, I got a whole Sea Bream, and Renata got a whole Atlantic Wrekfish, (Stone bass).
The day was filled mostly with some grocery runs, and a lot of relaxation and beach time. Yessss!
Dinner prep was made into quite an event. When all was said and done, this was probably the most delicious meal of our entire stay.
After dinner. we all took a long walk along the dirt paths that line the bluffs along the coast. We ended up down on some of the beaches. These beaches are especially beautiful, because depending on the tide, you can often go from one beach to the next either by skirting the surf when it goes out, or by ducking through some tunnels in the rocks that divide the beaches. This leads you to more, secluded white-sand beaches surrounded by rocky cliffs. Beautiful!
Thursday
On Thursday we made an excursion to the nearby beach town of Selma.
Friday
We spent some time in the morning checking out the old-town in Lagos again today. We had some breakfast, then some of us went shopping, and Alyssa and I took Elena and Sawyer to the science-museum/playground.
The afternoon was filled with more relaxation and beach time.
In the evening, Judy watched the kids again while the siblings all went out to Restaurant Piri Piri, where we ordered some giant pots of “Cataplano”, a seafood stew which is the specialty of the region, and of course, the Piri Piri chicken.
Saturday
We did a 4-hour catamaran tour along the coast today. Amazing! The boat took us south past rocky cliffs, caves and grottos, down towards Ponta da Piedade where we stopped to eat lunch, swim and paddleboard, then back home.
Pizza for dinner…we’re getting a little sick of seafood 🙂
Sunday
Being our last day, we took it pretty easy this day. Everybody went off and did their own thing for a while.
Several of us did a “Grotto Tour”. This is where a local takes you along the coast in a small boat with an outboard motor and shows you through the caves and crevices of the cliffs along the coast. This was really cool because we got to see a lot of the grottos close up, as opposed to the distance we saw them from our catamaran the day before.
In the evening, we had a little plan to surprise the kids. We really wanted to know how they would react if we all decided to have cupcakes with whipped cream, but when it came time to take a bit, all of the adults simultaneously smashed the cupcakes into our faces.
Monday
Time to move on! We packed our bags and got our rental car. Off to our next destination!
Portugal stay #1: Lisbon
June 14th, 2019
It didn’t take long after we arrived in Lisbon for us to fall in love with this city. Lisbon, especially the neighborhood we stayed in, is a very old city. There are winding cobblestone streets everywhere, orange tiled roofs, and open air restaurants and shops around every corner. We are in a very touristy neighborhood so we are able to get by with English only with ease, and everybody we meet is very friendly.
Our apartment – Friday
We have a VRBO apartment in the Baixa neighborhood. It’s up a steep hill with beautiful views of the river, and only a couple blocks from where Rita and Gregg are staying. It’s on a short side street, at the end of which we learned from Gregg becomes a party at night, with live music, street food and hoards of both locals and visitors dancing and drinking into the evening. We would get to see this for ourselves on the second night, but the first night we passed out early before the festivities started and barely heard a peep from out our window.
That first evening after we arrived we walked down our hill and ate dinner at Pistola de Corazon, a little Mexican place near us. Yea, it was a little strange to land in Europe and head straight for Mexican dinner, but it had great reviews, was easy, and it lived up to our expectations.
Tuk tuk rides and street cars – Saturday
Our first course of action was just to walk around a bit and explore. We had promised Sawyer that Portugal was the land of bakeries and treats, so we immediately seemed out the nearest spot and picked up a couple of Portugal’s most famous treat, a small custard in a flaky crust called a pastel de nata. It did not disappoint.
It was a beautiful day, but the sun was hot and the distances long, and Sawyer was getting quickly tired traipsing around, so we grabbed a nearby Tuk Tuk to give us a ride to the other side of town where we could have some lunch and catch a streetcar back home. We ended up catching the well-known “tram 28“, which winds through the narrow streets, up and down hills, and barely missing entrances to buildings and parked cars.
We took the train to the end of the line, where we found the Campo de Ourique Market, a wonderful food hall where we got wine and some snacks. The Grilled Cuttlefish was fantastic!
Later that evening. Gregg and Rita took Sawyer for a sleepover so that Alyssa and I could head out for a night on the town. We were finally able to see what the street-parties were all about after dark.
Street Art and Sailboats – Sunday
We started our second day with a scheduled “street art” tour around Lisbon. Our guide walked around the city showing us graffiti, murals, tags and tons of amazing public art, both legal and illegal, throughout the city. It really gave us a new viewpoint on the city, and we saw so many little beautiful details we never would have noticed just wandering around ourselves
After the street art tour we had some lunch at a local place (grilled fish anyone!), then wen’t home to relax a bit before our next outing.
In the evening, we headed down to the Marina for a sunset sailboat ride. We rode on a 42′ Benetau. It was a little chilly and windy, but it was so nice to be out on the water, and the sights from the river were beautiful.
Portugal Bound!
June 12th, 2019
Well, we’ve skipped over blogging about several trips…all of them since Sawyer was born actually. There was New Orleans, North Carolina, a great trip to Sayulita Mexico, and numerous San Diego trips. We’ve certainly gone through some transformations with how we travel now that we have Sawyer with us, but we’re figuring it out!
So next up is our first family trip overseas. Portugal here we come!
We’ve got our flights and lodging all lined up. Here’s a summary of our plan:
- Three days is Lisbon. We have our own place, but Rita and Gregg will also be staying only a couple blocks away
- A week in Lagos. We have a big house near the beach. It will be us, Rita & Gregg, Paul, Renata, Olivia & Elena, and Grandma Judy
- Three nights at a farm-stay north of Lisbon
- Three nights in Porto
- One night back near Lisbon
- One day and night in Amsterdam to visit Pascal and Jose!
Whew! It will be a whirlwind, but I’m confident we can pull it off and come out alive on the other end. Wish us luck.