thesimpleHOUSE

Our sixth day was a day trip to Sintra. Pena Palace and Quinta da Regaleira were on the docket. Except they weren’t on the docket of our tour drivers. Even though that’s what their summary said. Oh well.

Sintra was a very pretty fairy tale town. The narrow streets and steep climbs were now a natural part of our vocabulary and expectations.

After returning to Lisbon, we met up for a walking food tour through the downtown area. Our guide was a young Polish woman and very personable. Our first stop we sampled the Chouriço, which is a sausage with a smoky flavor from paprika.

Our main stop was to sample the sardines. I remember sardines as a kid and hated them. But I was willing to try most anything, so I did. They were actually quite flavorful and I liked them. Probably not enough to order them again or look for a recipe, but they were tasty.

After dinner, we stayed downtown and just walked around. Enjoying the rough, patterned cobblestone streets and walks and the Memorial Arch (this time at night).

Our next day, our last in Lisbon, was a free day and we already knew what we were going to do.

Our fifth day was full. We had events and sights from morning to evening.

MORNING

We went to the Castelo de São Jorge sitting atop one of the major hills in Lisbon. It’s old, dating to the 1st Century BC. A fortress that provided shelter and protection through hundreds and hundreds of years. It also provided a great view of the city.

From there, we went into town for lunch and had a very good pasta seafood dish and rustic bread. The rustic bread in Portugal became one of my favorites. You’ll note we had ice tea and Coke. Still not finding beer that I like.

AFTERNOON

The afternoon was our cooking/baking class. One thing Portugal is famous for is their Pastel de Nata. They are small egg/custard pastries that you sprinkle with cinnamon. They are decadent. Our larger group participated in a cooking class to learn how to make them.

Our chef/instructors were twin siblings that were amazing. We were taught step by step through the process of making the pastels and when we finished, we got to eat the fruits of our labor.

The pastels were amazing. They were also an incredible amount of work to create.

EVENING

Our day ended with a sunset wine cruise on the river to finish out our day.

On the fourth day of our Portugal journey, we joined the rest of our small tour group. This marked the “official” beginning of the tour. It actually started the evening before with a wine “meet and greet” and dinner.

The morning brought a trip to the southernmost part of Portugal, Algarve. Algarve is a region with sedimentary cliffs, resorts and tourism. “Algarve” is derived from the Arabic word for “the west.”

We had a short boat trip scheduled out of Portimão, a very cute community of about 60,000 people with gorgeous buildings along the harbor. We went out around the southern coast to view the sandstone cliffs. And yet again, we had amazing weather: 75ºF and sunny. This would be the rule for the entire trip!

It was a long drive from Lisbon to Portimão. Almost three hours each way. While it was beautiful, I’m not sure it was worth that long of a drive. But, the weather really helped moderate that, though.

Tomorrow: baking class making the famous pastel de natas, a sunset cruise and the morning at one of the castles.

Day three was a day trip to Òbidos and Nazaré. Both are a bit north of Lisbon. Òbidos is a walled medieval town dating back to the 12th century. Narrow cobblestone streets, very old houses and shops. It was a beautiful small community with a fairy tale atmosphere.

We found great souvenir shops (we bought some cork placemats) and just enjoyed walking up and down the hilly town. We also had Ginja de Òbidos, which is a sweet cherry liquer served in an edible chocolate cup. I’m not usually one for ultra-sweet liquers, but it was very good.

After visiting, we headed north to Nazaré. This is an area on the Atlantic coast famous for 100 foot waves and surfing at Praia do Norte. It became famous when Garrett McNamara surfed a 78 foot wave. We were a bit early in the season for the huge waves, but saw a couple of surfers. The high waves are the result of a large underwater canyon.

The Fort of São Miguel Arcaño lighthouse is an iconic symbol and a great viewpoint.

We went in to the actual town of Nazaré for lunch and had some seafood dishes, one of which was a seafood stew. Frankly, it was nothing to write home about. Not a lot of spice or flavor. We are used to foods that have a lot of flavor and spice. We were going to find the lack of robust food flavors is common in Portugal.

We headed back to Lisbon to meet up with our small tour group and begin the actual “organized” tour. This was the tour agents first trip to Portugal and was kind of a reconnaissance mission. So we were guinea pigs in a sense, which we knew going into it.

Back at our hotel, we had a welcome wine and dinner meet and greet. Most of the group had traveled together before to Italy and France. This was the first adventure to Portugal.

On the first of our two “free” days before the rest of our group arrived, we decided to take kind of an overview of Lisbon. Just exploring. The city is known for its cobblestone streets and sidewalks. They are gorgeous. And we were very glad we had good shoes with thick soles because they are very uneven.

In many areas of the cobblestone, the patterns are beautiful (more on that later).

We had heard through Rick Steves that you had to take the Tram 28 through town and especially through some of the older areas of Lisbon. So we did that. It was a popular tram and we waited in line about 30 minutes to ride. While it was nice, we later found just wandering around Lisbon was more satisfying.

We visited Rue Nova do Carvalho, also know as Pink Street. It is a hub of nightlife and popular for photos because of its vibrant colors. It was revitalized in 2013 with an urban renewal project that painted the street pink.

Another area that was highly recommended was Time Out, a massive, indoor food court. A large number of eateries run by local foodie chefs. It has 26 restaurants, 8 bars and a dozen shops. Opened in Lisbon in 2014, it became the first of many Time Out Markets worldwide. We had a seafood pasta that was, frankly just OK. Our family had some smash burgers they said were awesome. And it was here that I discovered Portugal has virtually any beer you like, as long as it’s a Pilsner.

Later that day, Brenda and I just wandered around town on our own. We went down to the water and the Arco da Rua Augusta. In the Baroque Revival style, it dates to 1755. That was right after the earthquake that took out a good share of Lisbon. It was built in memory of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that killed 30 to 40,000 people. Construction was started in 1755 and completed 118 years later in 1873!

After that, we took an Uber back to our hotel. Our second “free” day would be a trip to Òbidos and Nazaré.

After planning a two week trip to Portugal with family and friends in a small tour group, we planned on flying out of Eugene Friday morning October 3 at 11:00 am. I got up Friday at my usual 5:00 am time and found an email with the subject heading “Your Flight Is Cancelled”.

Not the way I wanted to start our trip.

Apparently the remnants of a hurricane messed up our connection out of Amsterdam to Lisbon. And this affected six of us since we were traveling with family out of Seattle. The email said they would be booking us on the next available flight and would contact us “soon”.

Not good enough since we paid extra to fly in a couple of days early and we were just a few hours away from leaving. So I jumped on the Delta Airlines chat and within about an hour, I was able to get all six of us rebooked and rerouted through Paris to Lisbon.

Whew. And, we were so glad Jesus went with us (inside family joke; ask our kids).

All went well on our flights, except we got downgraded from Comfort Plus to Economy. Not our favorite for taller people and a 10 hour flight. But, our travel insurance contacted us almost immediately, said they saw our flight was cancelled and we qualified for a $400 cash refund. Yay!

We had a short layover at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and made it to Lisbon Saturday afternoon within just an hour or so from our original arrival time. I must say John M on the Delta Chat was VERY helpful.

Arriving in Lisbon, we checked into our hotel (no problems) and headed to dinner at Rubro, an outdoor restaurant nearby. It was amazing. A wonderful start to our trip. Six people, tapas and entrees, two bottles of wine, bread and water for €127.

And the food was very flavorful.

We walked back to the hotel and readied ourselves for a day exploring Lisbon on Sunday.