Getting Lost in Charming Portugal
What is it about Portugal that has everyone - American and European alike - flocking to Portugal? Seems like everyone you speak to either has just visited or is planning to visit within the next few months.
I didn’t know much about this charming country, and I certainly didn’t know why all of a sudden it was the hotspot on everyone’s list. How could a place that wasn’t even on anyone’s radar 5 years ago grow in popularity so fast?
Determine to find out, I pitched visiting the country to two of my childhood best friends,
Rachel and Gillian, a few months ago as they were planning to come visit Amsterdam as part of a summer tour de Europe. They were more than down, and boy am I glad they were. We settled on Porto and Lisbon and I anxiously awaited for the calendar to turn to July so we could set off on our next adventure.
Unfortunately, I missed R & G’s visit to AMS as the passing of my beloved nana sent me back to the US, but thanks to a little family insistence, I made it back in time to meet the twins in Porto - our first stop.
Before arriving in Portugal I had heard three things: it’s beautiful, it’s cheap and the food is amazing. Well, now knowing a little more, I can confidently say all three are true, but there’s so much more to this (not-so-hidden-anymore) gem.
We arrived just in time for a late dinner our first night and took my friend’s recommendation to try Ostras & Coisas. After a little Google maps snafu that took us 20 minutes out of our way up the steepest hill imaginable, we found this modern seafood restaurant nestled in the calm yet bustling (for a Tuesday night) authentic neighborhood of Porto...about 300 feet from our AirBnB.
We dined on things like seafood soup, oysters and seafood rice, accompanied by the crispest glass of refreshing white wine. Absolutely delicious! And highly, highly recommended.
Wednesday was our Porto day. We started the day with an awesome brunch at Zenith (think avocado toast, açaí bowls, inventive pancakes type of a place) followed by a walking tour. Our guide was incredibly informative. In addition to hitting the hotspots and learned a lot more about the county’s history, the city, the people and the food and wine.
For example, Portugal used to be one of the wealthiest countries in Europe up until the 18th century. Like many other Western European nations, they were explorers and seafarers, except they successfully conquered land first on four continents - Europe (obviously), Americas (Brazil), Asia (Macau in China) and Africa (Mozambique and 4 other countries). Portugal became the first country to host a global marketplace where you could get goods from all four continents. They even introduced tea to the English from India!
Evidence of their wealth from the time is still depicted in the cobblestone streets and titled walls on buildings. Two unique styles the Portuguese are famous for.
The great earthquake in the 1700s sent the country into a downward spiral that they would never really recover from (until now!). When the cities were rebuilt, they were rebuilt for the same trading economy and not for the industrial revolution, which the World was on the brink of.
And then, Portugal fell victim to Europe’s longest fascist regime from the 1930s - 1974 with a dictator who closed Portugal off from developed and progress. This is why so much of the main cities are still frozen in time and just starting to blossom and boom.
Who knew?!
On our tour we hit hotspots like:
Clérigos Church
Lello Bookstore: Fun fact! JK Rowling was married to a Portuguese guy and lived in Portugal for many years. This library was a source of inspiration for Harry Potter including the moving staircases from Hogwarts. We also learned that the university students who are part of certain societies don these uniforms that inspired the cloaks of the students from Harry Potter. And the name of the dictator who ruled from the 1930s-1970? António de Oliveira Salazar. For those Harry Potter fanatics, you may have connected the name Salazar to the founder of Slytherin.
São Bento Station and its incredible tiling display
Dom Luís I bridge (by Eiffel’s protégé Seyrig)
River Douro, the lifeblood of the wine industry
Porto Cathedral
Fabulous panoramic views and many other beautiful sites
Our walking tour gave us quite the workout as the city of Porto is extremely hilly (as is Lisbon!). Think San Francisco. Literally. With street cars left to do the work of towing people up and down the steep hills.
We took a break in one of the main squares to catch the England v Croatia semi-final game. Even though Portugal was no longer in the mix, the football-crazy country still has massive TVs set up around the city for the public come together and watch the matches. We watched (the underdog?) Croatia take the V and advance to the finals surrounded by a few hundred other fans from all around the world. It was a truly special moment.
Cervejaria Brasão Aliados. This restaurant’s specialty is meat. Gillian tried the famous Franchesina - a Portuguese national dish that is actually my worst nightmare on a plate: white bread, 4 types of meat (sausage, ham, steak, and chicken) smothered in melted cheese and then covered in a spicy tomato-based sauce.
Thursday was our beach day. It was supposed to rain and be cloudy all day, but there must be a guardian angel up there who wanted us to have a beach day because it was the most picture perfect day. We went to Matosinhos beach, a beautiful white sand beach with miles of coastline and delicious seafood restaurants lining the beach. There was an also an old forte.
We ended the tour with our tasting in beautiful garden with the sun still shining. Just perfect!
We opted for another walking tour with the same company (Sandeman). I’m really loving these city walking tours. Most are free, last between 2-3 hours and give you all you need to know about the city. Plus, it’s a great way to get oriented with a city when you first arrive and identify what sounds interesting enough to go back and checkout on your own.
Anyway, the Lisbon tour was great. There are 4 main areas of Lisbon and we hit two of them: downtown and uptown, which left Belém (the monument district) and Old Town (Alfama) to do on our own.
We hit the following:
Largo do Carmo - one of the center squares of the city surrounded by historical buildings and church ruins from the earthquake
Rua Augusta - one of the main pedestrian streets in the city that has shopping and goes straight down to the water.
Castello de Sai Jorge - 4th-5th century castle.
We also learned more about the fascist government and the revolution in 1974. I won’t bore you with all the details, but it was fascinating to learn. Ok, I lied. One more fact: Many parts of the country were still without electricity until the 80s!!!
And did you know Portuguese is the 5th most commonly spoken language in the world? That’s mostly due to the large Brazilian population, but still!
On our own, we headed to Belém after the tour to check out the monuments and try the Pastel de Nata at the famed Pasteis de Belém. It’s an interesting flaky pastry with an egg custard inside. Not my thing, but glad I tried it.
After braving the line we toured Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, an ancient monk monestary/cathedral and walked along the beautiful river Tagus where we saw the Padrão dos Descobrimentos and Torre Belem. When our feet couldn’t take anymore, we ubered back to our Airbnb to get ready for dinner.
I luckily had a TON of restaurant recommendations and narrowed the list down to 5, two of which we were excited to try. However, on two separate occasions locals recommended a Japanese/Portuguese fushion restaurant called Sea Me, which happened to be just up the street from us. We were reservation-less on a Friday night, but decided to take a chance.
We walked in just as three seats opened up at the bar, so we decided try our luck there. And wow, and I glad we did. The entertaining bartenders helped us order what may have been one of the best sushi meals of my life - better than japan! This place blends Japanese styles (aka sashimi and sushi and flavorings) with the amazing local fish of Portugal. And, another fun fact! Portugal introduces tempura to Japan! So, you get things like codfish black tempura, sardine sushi, etc.
I’ve never had cod just melt in my mouth like that before. Or the combination of salmon, scallop, tempura octopus with a dollop is Japanese mayo. I am no chef, but I sure do appreciate those who are. Wow, was this place delicious!
After dinner we went to find a bar that had Fado music, the local Portuguese style that someone described to us as ‘Adele on crack.’ A strange, but not completely inaccurate description of the style. It’s almost an operatic, melancholy style that dates back centuries to when the explorers would set off on their voyages and the wives and girlfriends left behind would often display their grief via song. And so, Fado was born.
We chose a little restaurant/ bar called A Tosca do Chico in the Bairro Alto neighborhood, which was recommended to me by a friend. We shared a table with three ladies from Montreal. A mom/daughter and mom’s friend. The women were from Portugal originally and left over 40 years ago for Canada. We became fast friends as they were hysterical in their translations of what the singers were saying, and in their stories about what to do/see in the city.
On Saturday we took a day trip to Sintra, the area west of Lisbon that contains many castles and palaces dating back centuries. Sintra is a must-do for anyone visiting the Lisbon area. We chose to do a small group tour to maximize time and to get a little bit of the history along the way, but you can easily go on your own or take a tuk tuk tour of the area upon arrival in Sintra.
Our tour guide was great and we learned some interesting facts about how to despised a Moorish castle (tiles and rounded alcoves) from Portuguese (symbols of the ocean, of the Christian cross, of artichokes and of the Portuguese monarchy). We visited the Quinta da Regaleira, which is stunning. I highly recommend it.
After touring Sintra, we decided to head back to Lisbon and go to the old town in the late afternoon to check off the fourth and final area of the city. The old town, or Alfama, is easily reached by the famous #28 street car OR by climbing uphill about a million steep steps. We chose the latter.
By the time we got up there, we had time to hit one site, main one: Sao Jorge Castelo, or St. George’s castle. This millennium-old walled castle is a masterpiece that shouldn’t be missed. Besides from just the ‘cool’ factor, it provides breathtakingly stunning views of the city and the river below. We were glad we made the climb.
And then it was dinner time. We originally had a reservation at Pharmacia, a shared plates concept restaurant that is meant to be delicious, but we changed that to Sea Me, just because it was THAT good and there were plenty of dishes left on the menu to try. At the risk of sounding too crazy, the plan was to try to get into a restaurant called
A Cevicheria which looks unreal, but doesn’t take reservations, so the reserved restaurant - no matter what it was - was really a backup. Long story short, the wait for A Cevicheria at 9pm on a Saturday night would’ve been 3 hours...so back to Sea Me we went. No regrets there.
On the menu for night #2: black rice with mussels and squid, seared scallops with mango, tuna ceviche. This was accompanied by some familiar friends like the cod roll, sardine roll, and salmon/scallop roll. Yummmmm!
It was a bittersweet dinner, and not only because there would be no more nights of Sea Me in our near future, but because it was the last night of the trip and the girls were leaving to head to Italy very early the next morning. And me? After one last brunch at a highly recommended place called Nicolau and soaking up a little Portuguese Sunday sun, it’s back to reality.
Portugal’s charm and the company of dear friends provided much needed distraction at a time when I needed it the most. I’m grateful to have had these few days and I can’t wait for my next adventure with Rachel and Gillian!
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