Portugal 2025

In April of 2025, Bobi and I traveled to Portugal to visit friends and see the country. These are my notes from the trip.

April 5th

On April 4th, the day before our departure, United Airlines alerted us that predicted bad weather was likely to cause delays at our first layover in Houston. They offered free rebooking. We took them up on the offer, with a new route through Denver.

Shortly after we arrived at Albuquerque today, we learned that there were new weather delays, this time in Denver. Bobi got on the phone and re-booked us. The new route was through Chicago O'Hare and Washington Dulles.

April 6th

Traveling from the U.S. to Europe has always left me badly jet-lagged. I've tried staying awake the whole way, sleeping the whole way, and even (on the advice of my boss at the time, may he rest in peace) staying slightly buzzed the whole way. Nothing has worked.

Somehow, for the very first time, I had no jet lag on this trip. Maybe advancing age has accustomed me to never getting a full night's sleep. Maybe the Sony noise-cancelling headphones helped. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful.

It took a couple of hours to get through passport control at Lisboa airport. Laura was waiting for us on the other side. We stopped for airport food and coffee, then took an Uber back to Cascais and Rick & Laura's apartment.

For lunch we walked over to Dos Amigos. Our waiter was a friendly man named Eduardo.

I had sea breem & Sagres beer. Bobi isn't wild about fish, so, naturally, she ended up with a dish that featured a complete fish head.

After lunch, we walked to the beach, where we each had a small beer. A person could get used to this.

The water was busy, despite being a little choppy. We saw plenty of swimmers trailing orange buoys, paddle boarders, sailboarders, sailboats, and Labrador retrievers.

Part of the beach had been washed away in a recent, strong storm, exposing limestone under the concrete piers.

We walked past the Duquesa's castle, and saw some of Portugal's many electric trains. Then we walked back to the apartment along the Ribeira, stopping to check out more ocean views and to get gelato.

Laura and Rick gave us a few beginner tips for dealing with money in Portugal:

• cash is still useful
• Multibanco ATMs are good
• Eurobank ATMs are not so good (due to surcharges?)

At the end of the day we all took an Uber up the hill to Ruo do Alto and the Noah's Ark hotel. We were staying in the Rhino room.

April 7th

We walked a lot today, on the order of 10 miles. In the morning we came down the Ribeira das Vinhas to Rick & Laura's. Along the way we diverted to the nearest Pico Dos grocery to get supplies for the hotel room and to find an ATM. A pleasant surprise: at checkout, I was able to use tap-to-pay.

Rick took us along the beachside walk, where we watched ocean spray kick up against the piers near the Monte Estoril local train station.

We got an apartment lead from Claudia Mendes, who had helped Rick and Laura find their place. The apartment was very close to Rick & Laura's, just across the street from the Lidl grocery store.

Light aircraft were overhead all day. General aviation seems to be a big thing in this part of Portugal.

Small lizards were all along the Ribeira. According to the signs beside the path, the river is also inhabited by eels and invasive Louisiana crawfish.

Rick and Laura had us over for a delicious dinner.

April 8th

On Tuesday morning we met Claudia and visited the apartment across from Lidl. An older U.S. couple, Debbie and Bill Hickey from South Florida, had viewed it just before we arrived, and they had already signed for it!

Later we ran into the Hickeys again, in Lidl. They are very friendly. Debbie is about 10 years retired. Bill has been working remotely for Met Life since before the pandemic, in cybersecurity. Their daughter already lives in Lisboa with her kids, on a digital nomad visa.

Laura helped us look for apartments on Idealista, which she highly recommended, and then she walked us through the neighborhoods that had appealing places for rent.

Laura recommended hiring a lawyer, rather than a company, to guide us through the visa process. The Hickeys are using [insert company name] and paying $2000 total, with a partial payment at each new milestone.

As part of the tour Laura guided us up to the Pico Dos grocery that we'd visited Monday. We'd had no idea it was so near to their apartment. It turns out to be one of their preferred grocery stores.

While we were out walking, Rick sat on hold back at their apartment, trying to sign up for Medicare. At last, after two solid hours of muzak, he got — disconnected. Not fun.

Too much wine brought good conversation. Afterwards we walked down to Poke Bowl for dinner.

Toward the end of the meal we noticed a few boisterous groups of slightly large people. I immediately presumed that they were from the U.S.

(Mark Twain wrote that travel is fatal to prejudice. But my prejudice derives from working in Europe in the early 1990s, where I got to hear the locals caricature foreigners 😉)

Sure enough, they were families from Ohio and Indiana, taking their soccer-playing kids to see some games in Europe. Good on them.

We took an Uber home.

April 9th

We met Rick and Laura at the Wednesday farmer's market. It was big, and busy! Coffee and breakfast in the outdoor food court.

Laura walked us down to near the Boca do Inferno, then headed off to swim.

As we walked along near the coast, we stopped at the side of the bridge at Casa do Santa Maria. There we saw a teenaged boy, egged on by his friends, jump into the water below. I'm not sure how he missed all of the rocks. Daunting!

On the way back to the train station we took a wrong turn and ended up on a tourist street, where we had to run a gauntlet of waiters with menus.

At the train station we bought tickets, 1st class, from Lisboa Santa Apolonia to Coimbra B. Then we bumbled through purchasing local train tickets from Cascais station to Cais do Sodre.

Later, Laura spelled out the short sequence of metro stops from Cais do Sodre to Sta. Apolonia. Thank goodness Bobi, unlike me, was able to remember them the next day:

• green line to Baixa-Chiado
• blue line to Terreira do Paco
• then to the end of the line at Sta. Apolonia

We sat through a lesson of talkthestreets.com with Laura. (It was Wednesday: live Q&A.) Due to the time difference I'm not sure I would be able to make the Portugal live schedule from back in New Mexico, but the course is definitely steps beyond what I've been getting with Practice Português.

We had dinner at 7 Seas across from Rick and Laura's apartment, with Milana joining us late. Then an Uber home.

April 10th

We were up early to catch an Uber to Cascais station, then to Cais do Sodre, onto the metros, and breakfast at Apolonia station.

Waiting to board the train, we had a brief, friendly exchange with a group of tourists from... Canada? (Transcribing these notes a year later, I can't remember where they were from.)

We rode up to Coimbra B, passing cattle, sheep, ducks, and nest-building storks.

From Coimbra B we walked 1.4 sunny, slightly hot miles to the area near our lodgings, Sophia Hotel. We had a snack at Cafe Petisca Lina (I think) just across the street from Municipal Coimbra, and just around the corner from our hotel.

It's almost Easter. So, naturally, we saw someone in a bunny suit, riding in a caboose behind a gas-powered "train". The bunny waved. Passersby gave it high fives.

Bobi found us an early evening fado performance at 6 PM. It was a sing-along! 😁 Followed by port wine on the balcony, it consisted of music interspersed with explanations of the varieties (romantic, protest/political, folk-ish) and history of male student singing in Coimbra. Elsewhere in the country, fado is typically sung by women.

Afterwards we had a too-large dinner of bread, olives, cheese, and giant cod (bacalhaus) "hush puppies", with Sagres beer.

The Coimbra visit may be a bust, in terms of learning how it would be to live here. But it's a fine place in which to be a tourist.

April 11th

These are noisy accommodations. Students partied and traffic rumbled through most of the night, and the noise echoed up from the street. The students finally quieted after a light rain started.

But the hotel does have its advantages: unlike Noah's Ark, this room's Nespresso machine came with larger, Americano-sized cups 😁

About 9 AM the fire alarm went off. From the smell, we thought maybe someone had burned toast.

A couple of the other guests called emergency 112. Nobody came from the bombeiros. This hotel isn't really a separate structure; all of the buildings on the street are built as a single, continous structure. Given the bombeiros' non-response, a fire could have taken out an entire city block.

A man and woman staying here have a son who lives in Coimbra. He walked down from the high town (maybe he's a student), read the info I'd found at the unattended desk, and turned off the alarm. "If there really is a fire, it will go on again in a few minutes."

The alarm did give us a chance to mingle with other guests. We met a Canadian woman from Vancouver - the island? She had "faceplanted" in Porto after tripping, and had broken her nose. She had big bruises across her cheeks and under her eyes. Her initial medical care had been cheap, but follow-up care was more expensive: about €450 for either an MRI or a CAT scan.

While we chatted with the Canadian and the parents whose son came to help, another resident, a young Asian man, squeezed past us and hurried down the street. I still wonder whether he was the source of the burnt toast smell.

At 9:50, after meia da leite, we met our guide, João, for a really good walking tour of old Coimbra. It spanned Baixa, the lower city; remnants of old city walls, towers and defenses including under-archway ports for boiling olive oil; and the high town and Coimbra university. The weather was cool and sometimes drizzly. We needed fleeces and raincoats.

João showed and told us about recently discovered ruins including mikveh (old Jewish baths discovered after a water break ca. 2013).

The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site. As part of the designation, Coimbra and the national government are committed to restoring old buildings in Baixa. Many of these have no clear owners because they were abandoned by people emigrating to escape the Salazar dictatorship. So the restoration process often begins with records searches, seeking out descendants abroad, and conducting negotiations to buy from them.

João gave us histories of 1,000-year-old cathedrals that themselves had been built on the ruins of synagogues and mosques. He showed us stone mason insignias on stones in the upper city's "old" cathedral. Masons would sign the stones in order to be credited and paid for their manufacture. The insignias included an Arabic inscription about misery and suffering in creating something that would last – perhaps made by a slave?

On the way down, João took us through the botanical gardens and a small bamboo forest. He showed us a moss-covered, domed chapel. He seemed bemused that it hadn't yet been used for activities during the magic festival that occurs every September.

He also told us about student traditions. (Coimbra's is the oldest university in Portugal.) Among these traditions is that students often go home for weekends, partying on Thursday nights and leaving on Fridays. That probably explains the noisy partying last night.

April 12th

Today's morning task was laundry. The first laundromat we tried, Lavandaria da Baixa, was small and had a wait. The second, Lavandaria Coimbra, was outside the old city area. It had no waiting, and it had instructions in many languages. €9 per wash load.

In the afternoon, once the rain stopped, we Ubered to Vale des Flores. It had been recommended to Bobi on Facebook as a good neighborhood for Artie.

The taller, newer apartment buildings were certainly cheaper than in Cascais, and they looked roomier and nicer inside. Outside? Few people; graffiti; chemlawned grass; more cars than in Cascais; 80s or 90s-style cafes that had few customers and looked less inviting than those in Cascais. To be fair, it had rained all morning, so maybe that's why nobody was outside.

Across from the apartments and Linear Park was a shopping center. It looked like a U.S. shopping mall from the outside, but all of the stores opened onto the parking lot. If there were interior walkways, we didn't find them.

We also visited another recommended area, the Santa Clara convent, down by the river Mondeo. (The day before, João had described the convent to us. I wish I had written down the history he gave us.)

There were large green fields, but access entailed crossing a rather busy two-lane road. Not great for Artie or for people.

The bridge, Ponte Santa Clara, terminated at the end of the tourist walking street that we'd been frequenting. We spotted João, and said hello to him at the crosswalk near Largo da Portagem.

April 13th

We walked down to Largo da Portagem for breakfast at Princess Pastelarias. We had Pastel do Tentugal and Pastel Classico. The main ingredients for both: eggs, sugar, and water. They had flaky crust like filo dough. I blew through my carbs for the whole week.

João had told us about the history of these pastries. It had something to do with nuns at the Santa Clara convent, who used a lot of egg whites to starch their habits, and who needed to do something with the leftover yolks. Solution: Pastel de Santa Clara, or something like that.

Shortly after 11 AM we packed up and left, saying goodbye to Filipe (?) as we passed his cubby on the landing of Hotel Sofia.

(I haven't described this place well: enter from the street, walk through a narrow hallway about 10-15 feet long, then up two or three steps to the cubby/desk. It is nestled under one flight of stairs. The common area of the hotel consists of the stairway, with one or two rooms at every other landing.)

We walked to the FlixBus rodovário, arriving about 2 hours early. We spent the time watching and learning the boarding process: present ticket (QR code on phone), deposit luggage in cargo hold, board and find reserved seat.

The ride to Viseu was scenic. Part of it followed Rio Mondego, a clean green/blue river perhaps 1.5x as wide as the Scioto River near Waverly, Ohio. Wooded mountains, several small towns of red-tiled roofs on their flanks, wind turbines along the ridgelines.

The bus stopped briefly in Tondela and shortly afterwards arrived in Viseu. It passed through several roundabouts and then stopped at the main station, Estação Rodoviária (Centro de Mobilidade).

We walked up the ever steeper route to where our apartment, ChezGyka, was supposed to be, on R. Silva Gaio.

We arrived about fifteen minutes early, and we weren't sure which door actually led to our room. But within a couple of minutes we were greeted by Marcelo Marques.

Entry required two keys. The first admitted us to the base of a tight, multifloor spiral/square staircase. At its top, another key opened to another few turnings of stairs that ended at our apartment.

Our building is adjacent to the square at the very top center of old Viseu. Many restaurants are here along with the cathedral, the museum for Grão Vasco (the Great Vasco, a painter), and the Misericordia (Compassionate) Church. The cathedral and a nearby archway from the old city wall (?) date to the 1400s. At least one of the nearby restaurants is recommended by Fodors Portugal for its Portuguese dishes.

After unpacking, we went back down the hill to the indoor mall, the Forum, that houses Pico Doce and many other businesses. A superhero promotion/exhibition was ongoing. Little kids were posing with superhero mannequins and lining up for face-painting.

This area of Viseu is steep but compact, with lots of small shops and cafes. I think the apartments are cheaper and newer than what we saw in Cascais.

We had dinner at a little grilled food shop next to The Irish Bar. We stopped there, in part, because it was open 😁

April 14th

Today's forecast was for cold (low 50s F) and rain. We walked around a bit and had meia da leite and tostas mistas (ham and cheese and pressed toast) at the cafe on the Square of the Republic. Then we toured the cathedral and its museum of treasures before retreating from the rain.

In the afternoon we found the funicular. Walking down to the Cava de Viriato, a Lusitanian fortification, we passed the car park where the funicular terminates, and saw that it was indeed operating.

On the way back we got enough rain to warrant stopping in Pingo Doce to have decaf and to dry off. The cashier was a friendly young man from Brazil. He named his hometown and added, "not Rio." I.e., it was a small town.

For dinner we went downstairs to La Brasileira. Good food with two glasses each of Grão Vasco red wine.

April 15th

Nice views out the apartment window, to the now-visible wind turbines on the far mountains from Viseu, did not last long before the clouds moved in again. We got soaked on the walk down to the bus station.

We had more sun, and beautiful views of green mountainsides and whitewater rivers, on the first part of our bus ride to Braga. For one leg an Indian gentleman directly behind us talked on his phone.

To our surprise, the bus crossed over Rio Douro and into Porto - a huge city, to my eyes. Rio Douro had a marina in which small motor yachts were docked.

Leaving Porto, a new passenger loudly Facetime-d (okay, conference-called) several people in a Slavic language. Russian? Ukrainian? Her companion later spoke to her, quietly, in – English? French-accented English?

In Braga the bus station was a bit shabby. Bobi led the way from there to our lodging on Rua do Castelo, among a network of gently curving, pedestrian-first streets.

Everything in this part of the city is clean, evenly cobbled, and very touristy feeling. Gregorian chant plays from loudspeakers distributed on the streets. The reason: it is Semana Santa.

Omio (the travel reservation app) had said we needed printed tickets for the train ride to Lisboa. So Bobi guided us to the train station. At the Comboios Portugal window I got to have my first-ever conversation in broken Portuguese:

Me: "Ingles?"
Attendant: "Não."
Me: "Preciso... bilhette... papel?"
Attendant: "NÃO." [Shakes head.]

I hand over my phone with the PDF receipt. He, an older gent, pinches and zooms, then hands the phone back, gives a thumbs-up or some similar A-OK gesture. I think he says, "tudo bem," so I respond, "Obrigado."

Walking back to our room, we pause a short way beyond the arch at the edge of the holy/tourist zone, to step into a small cafe. The host is a friendly man with a well-groomed mustache. This is Cafe Porta Nova.

Our host is very friendly, but soft-spoken. He quietly describes a couple of the menu items. We each order a Francesinha plate with Super Bock beer.

"Francesinha" must be Portuguese for "heart attack." It's a multi-layered dish. From top to bottom:

• fried egg
• cheese
• white bread as thick as Texas toast
• thin-cut ham
• hamburger
• cheese (? I think)
• more thick white bread

All of this is soaking in a bath of tomato-soup sauce.

Our host points to the french fries - also on the plates - then to the sauce, indicating that the fries are good when dipped. Then he smiles, snatches one of Bobi's fries, dips it and eats it.

As we are leaving, the cook, a lady who had brought out our meals, hands Bobi a cooked tomatillo. As Bobi bites into it, our host points at it with eyebrows raised, then to his plate, which the cook has just brought out. "Mine!" And then he picks up another tomatillo and hands it to me.

In contrast to our earlier accommodations in Coimbra and Viseu, this room doesn't have a Nespresso machine. Instead it has a Krupps Dolce Gusto, for which there are no cups/cartridges.

Bobi figures out that the Continente grocery store stocks them, so we set out in the rain to buy coffee cartridges and cheese.

We get soaked again. Then the sun reappears as we stop at the info/tourist office on Praça da Republica. They tell us there is no procession tonight, but there will be one tomorrow (Wednesday) night.

April 16th

We got a late start, due mostly to the rain. Bobi mapped out a walking route to the São Victor neighborhood, which had been recommended by someone in an expat group for Braga on FB. We were able to walk the whole way, although Google Maps routed us through some areas that were loud and full of cars.

The first destination was a nice, well kept park with sports fields, a climbing wall, and a stream flowing through it. Artie would probably like it.

From there we walked to Braga Parque, a midwestern-style indoor mall many of whose stores also appear in U.S. malls. E.g., Timberland. Of course it also had more-local businesses such as a furniture store named something like "A Loja de Gato Preto."

We had some trouble finding the best pedestrian bridge via which to start the walk back, but once we got underway we soon found ourselves on quieter, cobbled streets.

The route to the mall had passed through a grimy industrial / construction area. This route was much more walkable.

Next we walked to the Dom Diogo de Sousa Archaeology Museum, located near ruins of a Roman bath. It was interesting, but it wasn't clear at first which of its artifacts had been found locally.

Just up the hill from the museum we had a late lunch (toast, tomatoes, carpaccio, olive oil; 0.4L Carlsberg for me, 0.25L Super Bock Stout for Bobi).

Back at the room we recharged our nearly dead phones.

In the evening we walked to a nearby restaurant that according to Google Maps had "tapas-like" dishes: 43 São Marco Street. It was a lucky find. The co-owner, Mark, a Brit in his 40s-50s, stopped to welcome us to his restaurant and to Braga generally. He told us there was a large ex-pat community. In fact it was quiz night, and several from the community were in the back playing and socializing. (Bobi searched her phone. It was indeed the ex-pat group she had joined on FB.)

In addition to running the restaurant, which he and his partner had bought just before COVID, Mark makes a living from teaching English.

I had two glasses of São Miguel vinho tinto, which was one too many. Bobi had the last of their ginjinha (a sweet liqueur) and a glass of wine.

Wednesday night there was a religious procession for holy week: Procissão de Nossa Senhora da “burrinha” - the procession of Our Lady of Sorrows, depicting the Flight into Egypt on a little donkey. We happened to leave the restaurant just as it was beginning.

April 17th

This was a travel day. We checked out a little after 1030 and made our way down Rua do Souto to the train station. Rain was light and intermittent. We stopped at Porta Nova Cafe for two meia da leite, hoping to see our waiter/host again. No luck.

After watching people at the street crossing for a while, we walked on to the station. We had lunch at the cafe out by the tracks. Then we meandered along Line 1 for a while, and sat in the waiting room.

The incoming train was about 30 minutes late. There was another delay as the driver (engineer?) pushed back a bit from the terminus, uncoupled the electric locomotive, raced it down to the other end of the train, and reconnected. All of this happened in light rain beyond the end of the station.

The route to Lisboa Oriente stopped at Porto (not sure which station) – yachts again, and river cruise ships – and at Coimbra B.

We arrived at Oriente more than 30 minutes late.

We took a cab to our hotel. With the cab ride, we'd sampled all of Portugal's over-land transportation modes (at least, all of the motorized ones).

The cabbie was a younger man. He was not friendly.

We ate dinner and then had a quick "happy travels" call with Laura and Rick.

We set early alarms: 3:45 AM. We were awakened even earlier, around 11:30 PM, when my credit union called to tell me the status of some financial transactions.

April 18th

Today we traveled home: Lisboa - Frankfurt - Denver - Albuquerque. We had flight delays in Denver, but in the end we arrived home only about two hours later than planned.

It was all kinds of nice to see our old friends in their new home, and to explore a bit of Portugal. I hope we can do this again soon.