Portugal Far and Wide

Arrival in Lisbon

A bit of indecision over booking the flight and so we could no longer find seats for all 4 of us on the TAP flight at 13:00, so, preferring to travel all together, we booked the 21:20 flight. A smooth flight; as soon as we landed in Lisbon and were reunited with our luggage, we headed to the taxi stand and with 8 euros in total we reached our hotel in a flash, mainly because, besides it being late in the evening and therefore the roads being nearly empty, the Portuguese, and taxi drivers especially, drive like maniacs!!! The windows were rolled down because of the heat, and with how fast he was driving, when I got out all my hair was blowing upward and only to one side (!!!).

Great idea, cutting my hair short right before leaving for Portugal… Arriving at the hotel, we were greeted by a receptionist who, as soon as he learned we were Italian, congratulated us on the World Cup we had just won, pleased that we had beaten France, which had eliminated them.

Visiting Lisbon

We begin visiting the capital. We decide to go on foot since we're on a hill and therefore it's all downhill, and so we start exploring the city. From Praca Marques de Pombal (near our hotel) we walk down the tree-lined Avenida da Liberdade to reach the Rossio district. The idea is to go and visit the Castelo de S.Jorge, but along the way we stop to visit the Igreja do Carmo next to one of Lisbon's "elevadors" (there are 3 in all, though we preferred to always go on foot), see various squares including Praca do Comercio, which is one of the main ones, faces the river, and from where the 25 de Abril bridge begins to come into view.

To go up toward the castle we wanted to take the characteristic tram (12 and 28 are the only ones left and both pass along the street just behind Praca do Comercio), we waited a while at the stop in vain, probably there had been some problem, and so we made the climb on foot and along the way we also stopped to visit the Cathedral (or Sé). The castle is very beautiful and enjoys a magnificent view over the city. Coming down we took the tram that continued in the opposite direction from where we had gotten on, so we were able to admire other hidden corners. A quick gelato and then off to Belém. We took a taxi because the bus was taking forever and too many people had gathered, plus there are 4 of us to split the cost and here taxis cost truly little (on average we spent 4/5 euros in total!!!).

We visited the stupendous Torre de Belém, the Padrao dos Descobrimentos (very close to the 25 de Abril Bridge) and the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos. After that, a visit to the Pasticceria de Belém to taste their Pasteis was a must; the place is small, "old-fashioned" and rich with azulejos, and the pasteis come out of the oven fresh, a real treat! We also drank an excellent fresh-squeezed juice and the price for all of it is truly ridiculous if I think of the prices going around here in Milan!!! Return to the hotel again by taxi; after freshening up we're ready to look for a little restaurant for dinner in Bairro Alto, as recommended in the guidebook. Indeed it's an area full of little spots, but nothing exceptional; the food is good and you don't spend much, but compared to other places in Portugal it's really nothing special.

To give you an idea of the prices for a dinner, I can tell you that during the whole vacation we never spent more than 50 euros for 4 people, and mostly we ate fish!!!

Lisbon and surroundings

This morning we have little time available because at noon we have to go pick up the car we rented from Italy. Trying out the metro (very clean and quiet) we headed to Chiado, and from there we went up a staircase to reach the Miradouro de Santa Luzia with the church of the same name; from there, toward the renowned Mosteiro de S.Vicente (yet another church with an entry fee (€4.50)). We were a bit uncertain about the road to take, and a very kind little old lady came toward us, guessed that we were looking for S.Vicente and, always in Portuguese, explained how to reach it. Lucky that the language of gestures is universal. The Portuguese, in any case, are extremely kind and always ready to help you. Under an increasingly scorching sun, walking up a slope, we reach the car rental at the appointed time.

We, who were worried about not having enough room for luggage, and had therefore asked for the Golf category or similar, end up with a brand-new and truly enormous Seat Cordoba! We leave Lisbon in the afternoon heading northwest to visit: SINTRA, CABO DA ROCA and CASCAIS. The roads are well signposted and very smooth (during the whole vacation we found traffic only in Porto, but it was six in the evening!!!), so we quickly reach SINTRA. We immediately visit the Palacio National (very beautiful; it was once the royals' summer residence), which is the first one we come across because it's located right on the "main" square. The town itself is decidedly small and all uphill; be careful about the roads to drive on because it's easy for the street to narrow and for you to have trouble getting through with a big car (we squeezed through a little street that at first seemed wide...).

When we came out it was almost two o'clock and we still had to eat, so we stop at the first place we find, choosing between a couple that were right there on the square. Hunger, as we know, is a terrible thing; if possible, don't go to SINTRA at lunchtime, or otherwise get your food beforehand; here it's really not worth it: they're extremely slow and they charge you a lot even just for a simple sandwich! Refreshed, we continue our visit by going up toward the Castelo dos Mouros, dating back to the 8th century; as the name itself says, it was built by the Moors.

The castle dominates the valley below; it's a beautiful fortification and you can still walk along almost all the walls; it's truly worth the visit! Afterward we were also supposed to go to the Palacio de Pena, but we had gotten quite tired from going up and down the castle's various stairways under the three o'clock sun, so we decided to skip it and go directly to the next stop. But if you have time, do visit it, because I've been told it's truly beautiful, and if I happen to return to Portugal I won't let it slip away again. We head toward the coast, more precisely toward CABO DA ROCA: the westernmost point of the European continent! A stupendous scenic spot where you can finally admire the ocean.

It would have been nice to see the sunset at CABO DA ROCA, but time is pressing, and turning back toward the hotel in Lisbon, we stop in CASCAIS, a renowned seaside town, for a little stroll, including on the sand, and a good fish dinner. A warning: swordfish is called "espadarte," not to be confused with "peixe espada," which, although not bad, is nevertheless a completely different type of fish!!! Return to Lisbon late in the evening by driving along the coastal road (passing through Estoril) and enjoying the illuminated city…

From Lisbon to Coimbra

Up early, check-out from the Hotel Madrid in Lisbon, and off to the highway heading for MAFRA. Maybe because it's Sunday, but the highway is deserted!!! Wonderful! We arrive at the Palace of Mafra shortly after 9 am and easily find parking. The main square is occupied by garlic and onion sellers (!!!!!); some have a stall and others display their goods directly from the trunk of their car!!! We go to the Tourist Office, which is located right in one part of the Palace, and discover that we have to wait until 10 am to visit it, but entry is free!!! In fact, it seems that every Sunday morning (from 9/10 am until about 2 pm, depending on the place) you don't pay admission to museums. We wait all the more happily for the guided tour to begin (there's also a guide who speaks Portuguese/English/Spanish, but that's fine anyway), going to visit the Palace church.

Yes, because the royal family wanted a church they could access from inside the palace, while the rest of the population entered normally from the square in front. The Palace of Mafra, the summer residence of the royals of Portugal, is truly enormous and beautiful; in an hour-long visit we see only some of the rooms. We saw the queen's rooms on one side, the king's on another, the room with hunting trophies where even the chairs and chandeliers are made from animal remains, plus the various parlors, guest rooms, etc. These are the rooms I remember most, but there are truly many. If you want, you can also visit the gardens, but for us time is pressing, so we go back to the car for the next stop: OBIDOS.

Obidos is a little town completely surrounded by walls! The houses are all white with trim colored yellow or green or blue, and the roofs are red: it's enchanting! You can walk along all the walls, but at a certain point there's a closed passage, so you have to come down and go back up again to continue; there's also the medieval village (you can glimpse it from the walls but you only enter for a fee) where even the people are dressed as they were back then: very evocative. We continue along the coastal road and stop at the beach of NAZARE; the "real" town, however, stands on the hill, from which you can enjoy a beautiful view. After Nazaré we go to visit the monasteries of ALCOBAÇA and BATHALA. It's the early afternoon and the heat is truly torrid, and it's a pleasure to take shelter inside these splendid monasteries. We arrive in COIMBRA in the evening.

Just enough time for a shower and then we take the car again, amid steep ups and downs, with the map found in the hotel in hand, and go looking for a nice little place where we can eat. Total disappointment when we realize that, since it's Sunday, everything is deserted! Moreover, it's late July and by now the university students must have finished their exam session… After wandering around and around, we end up strolling along the main street and manage to find a very hidden and very cheap little restaurant. Aesthetically it didn't inspire much confidence, but we were very hungry and it was starting to get late even for the Portuguese to serve dinner, so we go in. Well, I must say that besides being extremely friendly (the waiter did everything to make us understand which fish he was telling us about, complete with a mini-encyclopedia in hand!!!), we ate really well.

On the way back to the car, along the way we get to hear real Portuguese music played and sung live outside a venue in the main square. The evening couldn't have ended better.

From Coimbra to Porto

Coimbra is famous for its University which, founded in 1290, remains still among the most prestigious in Europe. To me, honestly, it was a bit disappointing, maybe I had too high an expectation, I don't know. Definitely worth seeing is the Joanina Library and the Chapel of São Miguel, also inside the University. For the rest, the Sé Velha (that is, the "old" cathedral) is very pretty, there's also the Sé Nova but on Monday morning we found it closed… Once we had come back down completely from the little hill where the University is located, we passed through the center again to take some photos in the daylight, there are lots of shops and some little churches here and there, nice but nothing special. Having left Coimbra, we head toward Porto (Oporto) taking a secondary road and then reaching the coast and thus also passing through Figueira de Foz.

Along this road, in the middle of nowhere, at a certain point we spotted a restaurant with an almost full parking lot and already this made us hopeful about the food (it was almost two o'clock and we hadn't had lunch yet).

As soon as we entered we realized it was the classic truckers' place, in fact it was packed full of men, just a few local families here and there, Rose and I were looked up and down as if they hadn't seen a woman in years! The waiter advised us to get steaks (I'm not sure what animal they were from but they were good) because they cooked faster and we took his word for it; well, in the end we ate the single dish (they don't use a first and second course like we do) consisting of 2 steaks each accompanied by rice and french fries, plus a plate of fresh vegetables for everyone, plus drinks, water, dessert and coffee, in short for all this we spent only 6 euros each!!!!! When I think that in Milan, for a lunch break, I can barely get a first course without water and coffee… Figueira de Foz is the classic seaside resort, the beach is nice and big, long and wide, and the little town is nice, I

liked it much more compared to the beach of Nazaré. In the late afternoon we arrive in Porto. It's definitely more chaotic compared to the other cities and we have a bit of trouble finding our hotel, on a hill obviously (Hotel Tryp Porto Centro)!!! With difficulty we manage to find a parking spot nearby, in fact for the evening we prefer to take a little walk on foot, at most if we're tired on the way back we can always take a taxi;-) After freshening up, we go out for dinner and thus begin to see a bit of this city famous above all for its wine (Port, of course). We head toward the Ribeira, the most characteristic neighborhood located on the bank of the Douro river.

Going down the road, within a very short time our boys (I should say "husbands" but I'm still not used to it…) get doused by a little woman who was washing her balcony with buckets!!!! Having reached the ruins of a castle, from where on the left an elevador1 departs that takes you right to the riverbank, while ahead you begin to see the beautiful iron bridge Dom Luís I (the structure resembles that of the Eiffel Tower and in fact it was designed by an assistant of Gustave Eiffel), we glimpse a long zigzag staircase among little houses that aren't exactly the homes of rich people and we decide to take exactly that path to reach the area of the bars on the Douro. As we go down we realize that here the people are decidedly poor, the children play on the staircase with little or nothing and the adults look at us somewhat astonished.

The next day, in the Lonely guide, we discover that they recommended not taking that road because it was quite dangerous!!!! We got off decidedly lucky… The Ribeira is a very pretty neighborhood, there are lots of bars and restaurants all in a row along the riverbank, complete with a promenade and benches in front, so there's nothing but an embarrassment of choice for where to eat. We enter one that's a bit quieter (they all have tables outside but we prefer to stay inside) and I order the sea bream while the others get "arroz de marisco" which is not a seafood risotto but is a kind of seafood soup with rice served in terracotta pots, the portion for two was enough for four people!!!!, we'll keep that in mind for next time. Really everything delicious and always at a moderate price.

We snap a few souvenir photos with the bridge and the Douro behind us and after a little stroll we return to the hotel by taxi, which are easy to find in that area.

From Porto to Braga

Visit to Porto. Unfortunately the day is really gray and a light drizzle is falling. We walk toward the center and wander around it a bit, glancing at the shops and the churches—as always, countless—that attract us most.

Instead we climb to the top of the Torre dos Clérigos (225 steps according to the guidebook but for me somewhat fewer; not too easy in any case), where you can look out over much of the city; it's truly a shame the weather is so awful… We then visit the atrium of the train station, which is rich in very beautiful azulejos, and we arrive just as they're filming one of their telenovelas… Then we go to the Palácio da Bolsa and the very nearby church of Sao Francisco with its adjoining museum; we decided to see both because of the weather, but I'd say it's not essential, even though they're very rich in treasures; finally we see the Sé, but it's nothing special; what is nice instead is the square in front of it (rain aside…).

The part I liked most, besides the one with the riverside bars from the night before, is definitely the Dom Luis I bridge and the area on the other side of the river, that is, the one packed with wine cellars!!!!! Each cellar has its own hours (generally they all close for the lunch break), but then there's an embarrassment of choice! For free they show you how the wine is produced (the famous Port, of course!) and then they let you taste it. I didn't think there were so many different kinds, all delicious, and worth trying! With the tour of the cellars we've finished visiting this beautiful city, so we head toward Braga for the next stop. We arrive at our destination at sunset and only manage to see the gardens of S. Barbara; for dinner we stop at "Cozinha da Sé" on Rua Brandao; it's not cheap but the food is really good, and besides, we haven't seen many other restaurants…

Braga, Guimares, Fatima.

Today the weather is turning nice. We quickly visit the center of Braga, famous for its churches and in particular for the Sé; honestly it didn't seem like anything special to us, but it's the ideal base if you want to see the Bom Jesus, a renowned church on the top of a hill 6 km from Braga. This church is a destination for many pilgrimages; it sits at the top of a large double staircase that some of the faithful still climb on their knees; you can also reach it by the country's oldest funicular (1882). Whatever means you choose, it's worth it if only for the peace that place gives you.

Continuing our journey, trusting instinct rather than maps, we reach the Santuário Nossa Senhora do Sameiro; there's practically no one there, and if it weren't for the multitude of plants surrounding it, you'd enjoy a beautiful panorama, since we're even higher up than before! Our next stop is Guimares! It's the city that fascinated us most in all of Portugal! Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it's a medieval town worth wandering through far and wide; I couldn't put into words how beautiful it is! Unfortunately, in our itinerary we hadn't planned to stop here to sleep; in fact, the next day we're scheduled for Tomar, so we have to quickly cover the many kilometers that separate us from the hotel we booked in Fatima for the night (in Tomar the only available hotels were extremely expensive, and we preferred to go to Fatima, which is only half an hour away by car).

We hit traffic in Porto because of roadworks and maybe also because it's already six in the evening; in any case we reach the hotel around 19:30, a quick shower and then out for dinner. The kids weren't interested in visiting this renowned place of faith, but since we were there, and moreover 5 minutes' walk from the site of the Madonna's apparition to the three shepherd children, Rose and I convince them to make a quick stop. Essentially it's a large square where on one side there's a church, too modern for my taste, which was built around the chapel of the apparitions. There's a path of large slabs that starts from one of the entrances to the square and reaches the church, skirting around it, which many of the faithful walk on their knees; we get to see a few of them too, even though it isn't high season and there are few people around.

Shortly afterward, however, a Mass is celebrated in the other church at the far end of the square, higher up, which was built after the official recognition by the Church; inside are the tombs of Lucia and the other two shepherd children. Round and round the time passes, and when we finally decide to actually go to dinner it's almost 22:00!!! Anywhere else there probably wouldn't be a big problem finding something to eat, but there we realize there are practically only religious souvenir shops, and with difficulty we still find a place that was about to close, but the owner, moved to pity, lets us in anyway, and at last we can fill our bellies and go to bed.