Category: Portugal

Day 4 we decided to head out to Lisbon’s iconic landmark, the Torre de Belem.  It’s probably the most touristo thing to see here, so why not.  It was a bit of a hike to the appropriate train station to take you out to Belem, and then another hike from there to the Tower.   On the way, we passed a festival of sorts at the Lisbon Welcome Center Plaza right on the waterfront.  It’s called Eurovision, which is a yearly music event to find the best musical acts in Europe.  Google tells me that it’s the longest-running annual international TV song competition, starting back in 1956, and the 1st time…

Day 3 for us was market day.  Specifically, the Feira da Ladra or colloquially known as the ‘Market of Thieving Women’.  Yikes!  Hold on to your shorts.  It was an interesting stroll in the hot sun through one of the better-known markets in Lisbon, open every Saturday and Tuesday.  Lots of tourists here as there are elsewhere in Lisbon.  There are 5 large cruise ship berths along the Tagus river on the south end of the city. I’m not a flea market kind of guy but Teresa likes to poke around these places for ‘deals’.  It was, as I said interesting, and it was large as street markets go, covering…

    Lisbon is bustling and energetic.  We like it, but it is a noisy place.  Lisbon has a vibrant mix of cultures, African, Asian, South American, and points in between, derived from the vast empire Portugal established during the exploration age.  And you can see it all, strolling through the neighborhoods, crossing the invisible boundaries that separates these cultures.  Yet, they all blend together to make the city work.     The arrival day was typical for us. After the bus and train ride and the usual walk from the station to wherever our next airBnB place is, we are tired. Our new host, Ana Carolina, provided bread, eggs,…

That’s right, dinosaurs.  Well, maybe 100 million years ago, but they did leave some footprints in the granite wall on the way to the beach.  Pretty cool.  The wall is vertical, so I’m guessing some weird geological events happened way back.  You know, volcanoes blowing up, freaked out dinos wondering why their tootsies are getting toasty, and big rocks being thrust up to make mountains.  A grand time to be alive.  And speaking of grand….that’s where we were today.  Praia Grande, a very nice beach surrounded by high cliffs.  Lots of sand, walkers, dogs, surfers, and some smallish waves today.  I’ve read though, that the highest recorded surfer waves (like…

The first couple of days in Almocageme we were getting our bearings.  There are not a lot of guidelines in the out of the way places and dealing with groceries, buses, and the general day to day is very local.  They are not geared to the tourist here.  Having said that though, the people have been exceptionally friendly and helpful and a lot of them speak English which wasn’t the case in Spain.  Our host, Claudia, went above and beyond to be helpful, from picking us up at the train station in Sintra, to providing endless amounts of information about what to see and where to go.  She even took…

Sintra was where we were initially going to stay but thank god we didn’t. It’s the main attraction here just north of Lisbon and it’s a very busy place. We are actually in Almocageme, pronounced (Al-mu-sa-jè-mê), and we have been here for the past week and I must say, absolutely delightful. The small village of Almocageme is in the middle of the Sintra National Forest and where we are, up on the hillside, one can see the Atlantic ocean as well as the lush valleys and surrounding forest. More on this in another post. It’s a 20 minute bus ride into the heavily touristed town of Sintra, which we visited…

Where is everyone??? Well this is interesting.  After complaining about all the tourists, we seem to now be unable to find any?   We’ve been here for 2-1/2 days and the weather  has been really nice.  Sunny and 26 degrees.  We arrived in Tavira after about 6 hours travel from Jerez via Seville by train and bus.  A bit long but it was broken up with having to go back to Seville to catch a bus as there are no trains into Portugal from southern Spain.  There are trains from each side going to the border, but the tracks don’t meet up.  At least this is what we are told. …