Portugal On the Road
24 JUNE - 11 JULY 2017
DAY 1-2
Zurich - Bilbao - Burgos
Another trip by car, to discover the western end of the Iberian Peninsula. As during the trip to Spain, we cross France at night, to avoid traffic and arrive, as soon as possible, at the first stop of the trip. We reach the Basque Country early in the morning, in Bilbao. Under the rain, we make a walk in the streets of the center up to the Guggenheim Museum: the city is quite anonymous, especially if compared with the other marvelous towns that we have visited in Spain. We visit the museum with its Puppy-guard, a gigantic dog made of peonies. We visit the museum of contemporary art, and we walk along the river, between the sculptures and the artistic open-air installations.
We resume the trip to go to a small town that had deeply impressed us on a former trip to Spain, when we had made a short stop for dinner. We manage to get lost by car in the upper city, around the pedestrian precinct of the inaccessible city center, but finally we reach our hotel, right in the heart of the city, in front of the giant cathedral that dominates the main square.
HOTEL: Meson del Cid
We take a walk exploring the surroundings, end up in an inn that serves tapas, and we are lucky to find a table shared with another couple, in the midst of a crowd of people standing. We order what attracted us to enter the place, namely a huge toast with raw ham (tostada). Super satisfied with the dinner, just the time to turn the corner and we are back in the hotel.
DINNER: Cerveceria Morito
DAY 3
Burgos - Salamanca - Piodao
Early in the morning we get up and go to visit the city, finally in the daylight. After breakfast, in a nice little place just in front of the omnipresent cathedral, with tortillas and tostada, we get back on the road to the next destination.
BREAKFAST: Viva la Pepa
Today we visit Salamanca. At first glance this town is a real jewel, even more than many other Spanish cities that already last year had amazed us. Each building is a feast of Moorish decorations, reliefs, openworked windows. We walk through the center, touching all the sites of major architectural interest, including universities, churches, and biting here and there a sandwich with Jamon Iberico. It doesn't take long to visit the whole city centre, but it was definitely worthwhile to see all the wonderful monuments and buildings of this place.
Back on the road, we make a short detour to La Alberca, a small village scattered among the first mountains, with half-timbered stone houses and hams hanging in garages. Just the time to stretch our legs, and we grind more miles ahead of our nightly stopover, across the border, in Portugal. It is a small village in the middle the central mountains of Portugal, to which we arrive after several detours because of a closed road, which in the midst of deep valleys and imposing mountains, forces us to take a different and much longer road.
We arrive close to sunset in Piodao, a tiny mountain village, with stone houses perched next to each other as in a crib. We quickly leave our suitcases in the house that will host us, to go, before it closes, at 9 p.m., in the only restaurant of the village. Fortunately, the absence of competition did not affect the quality of the food, which was excellent, especially the sheep stew. There is not much to do in this corner of Portugal, with just few inhabitants and a few orange lamps that illuminate the deserted alleys. We take a walk at night on the road that leads to the village, a few photos of the illuminated houses, and then we go to sleep.
HOTEL: Casa da Padaria | DINNER: O Fontiñha
DAY 4
Piodao - Lagos
Upon waking up we are welcomed with a delicious breakfast, in the living room of the house, with homemade jams, cakes, fresh ricotta cheese, fruit, bread and other delicacies. We take advantage of this wonder and then take a walk in the village to shoot some photos in the daylight.
We plan to reach the Algarve for the night and then we get back on the road and we continue the trip. We make a short stop in Coimbra, where we we curiously drag up the steep alleys to the university on top of the promontory on which stands the city. This proves to be a total disappointment: the town is very dirty and degraded, the university area an expanse of Fascist buildings of little value, and the center a single commercial artery, very touristy.
We have a quick lunch with a few tapas and make another afternoon stop in Evora, a pretty white and ochre town, with the old town surrounded by walls, pleasant to visit even if it is one of the hottest places in Portugal, as we immediately realize.
RESTAURANT: Tapas nas Costas
Many hours later we arrive in the Algarve, in Lagos, where our Airbnb accommodation awaits us, totally disappointing and different from the online description, where we share a tiny double room, and the bathroom with three other couples.
DAY 5
Lagos
Wake up before dawn today, to reach the cliff area in the area of Praia Dona Ana, and take a walk and some photos of these majestic rust-colored cliffs. We take off our shoes and walk on a large beach, whose shore is invaded by comb-shells and we move to some other cliffs, this time with a beach to spend the day at the seaside.
We arrive at Praia da Marinha, where we descend to the foot of the cliffs and spend our day in the sun, more than in the sea, since the water is icy and the waves really uninviting to take a bath. We can only do a quick dive to cool down, and we run out the freezing waters.
Towards the end of the afternoon, we go home, refresh ourselves and go for a walk in the centre of Lagos. We turn around the village to look for a recommended place to eat, but in vain, as it seems all full already at 6 p.m. So we decide to give up and drive to the lighthouse of Ponta da Piedade to see the sunset: nothing special actually, but it seems a nice place for some photos at dawn, so we plan to return the next morning and go back to Lagos for dinner in the only restaurant that offers us a place, on the waterfront. The dinner is very good, in a huge industrial shed full of tables.
DINNER: Adega da Marina
DAY 6
Lagos - Lisbon
We wake up again before dawn and run away from our very narrow room. We go to Farol Ponta da Piedade as planned. We find another photographer capturing in the dark the waves of the sea from a small pier at the bottom of a long staircase carved into the cliff. We make room and wait for the rays of the sun to begin to illuminate the cliff and the large waves that break against the stacks. We go back to the same beach of the day before, before people arrive, to take some photos, and then relax again in the sun. In the middle of the day, we move to another beach, the Praia da Falesia, where there are actually no cliffs around, but we spend a few hours in the sun in an immense and windy expanse.
Around 4 p.m. we leave again for Lisbon, where we will spend the next 3 days. We arrive in the evening in our Airbnb accommodation, quite cozy and comfortable although not too central. We decide to go out for a nightly walk in the city, which turns out to be really unusual. At the center of the city there is the old town, perched on a high hill. From the maps you can not feel the altitude, and so we climb and descend steep stairs, streets and alleys, tangled around different levels that you can not cross except by following very twisted paths. However, we arrive at our destination, a shellfish restaurant that proves to be a valuable discovery. We have to take a ticket and wait for a very long queue, but dinner is worth the wait. We eat in a very small restaurant, upstairs of this chaotic trattoria. We order garlic shrimps, stewed clams, grilled tiger prawns.
DINNER: Cervejaria Ramiro
DAY 7
Lisbon
Today we are exploring Alfama, the historic hilly district of Lisbon, where the night before we had lost ourselves in the unevenness of the alleys. We wander around, observing monuments and houses covered in majolica. Everything is potentially very picturesque, but the city is so degraded that even the most beautiful buildings are falling and poorly maintained. We try to photograph here and there some beautiful glimpses of the characteristic yellow tram that winds through the alleys.
For a late lunch, we reach the Time Out Market, where we have a black salmon burger with some very tasty chips. The day ends hopping to the shops in the center. For dinner we return to the Time Out Market, where there are numerous street food and more elaborate food stalls offering a wide selection to choose from.
DAY 8
Lisbon
Today we explore Belem, the suburban district of Lisbon, where the Torre de Belem and the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos are located. The neighborhood is quite insignificant, with a fast road that cuts and separates even the monuments, forcing you to walk next to the cars travelling at high speed. We walk to the Torre de Belem, passing in front of the monument of the explorers. In the afternoon, we visit the monastery, beautiful and very big inside.
Before returning to the center, we dive into the crowd of the famous bakery Pasteis de Belem, where you could apparently eat the best Pastel de Nata of Lisbon: and actually they do not leave us disappointed.
We spend the rest of the afternoon in the Oceanario neighborhood, a huge building of questionable beauty surrounded by very pleasant architectures. It was built during the Expo ‘98 and it's a beautiful mix of famous and recognizable buildings, from Calatrava station to Niemeyer pavilion and other unique contemporary architectures.
At dinner time we go back to the center and we enter a restaurant of Bairro Alto that seemed captivating: the dinner is good but not exceptional. After a night walk, we go back home and prepare our suitcases, in anticipation of the next day's move.
DINNER: Carmo
DAY 9
Lisbon - Sintra - Obidos
Today we're taking the car and going to Sintra. We visit this bizarre architectural pastiche of the most diverse styles, with castles, crenellated towers, Byzantine domes, coloured stuccoes and majolica, with gargoyles and shells on the walls. We have lunch with some excellent quiches in a small bistro in the heart of the village of Sintra and then we leave for Cabo da Roca.
LUNCH: Cafe Saudade
We arrive at Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in Europe, and after standing in the cold, given the gusts of wind on the cliff, we set off again towards our next stop. We arrive in Obidos at the end of the day, and after turning four or five times in the only very narrow one-way street outside the walls to look for our accommodation, we find it hidden by a huge hanging wisteria: it is a noble family estate, where we are welcomed by the charming landlord, elegantly dressed. We settle down quickly and go to dinner, as everyone here in Portugal seems to be eating very early. We find an open cafè, outside the centre, near an abandoned church and enjoy our fish dinner.
DINNER: Señor da Pedra | HOTEL: Casa Picva
Back home, we take a walk through the center for some nightly photos. The town is beautiful, a swarm of white houses bordered by blue and ochre, gathered between the intact medieval walls.
DAY 10
Obidos - Porto
This morning we have breakfast with our host who talks and asks us many questions. We take a walk through the narrow streets of the village, lit and wet by the rain. We give up to take some nice photos as soon as the streets are crowded with dense groups with umbrellas, that stop in Obidos before going to the nearby Lourdes.
So we decide to leave again. On the way we stop to visit the monastery of Batalha, particular because it has an incomplete part, without a roof, remained standing to suffer the signs of time. Another short stop at Aveiro, to take a walk in the center with canals and gondolas, before arriving at Porto. Landed in our beautiful Airbnb apartment, super modern and chic, not too far from the center on foot, we settle down and go out for a walk in the center before it gets dark.
Unlike Lisbon, this city is much more tidy and pretty, or at least fascinating in its decadence. We arrive at the river, where we are surprised by a huge iron bridge in the style of the Eiffel Tower, and a port district worthy of a pirate movie. We enter the narrow, uphill streets of this Portuguese Tortuga, with screams and whistles because of the giant screen game broadcast in a square in the neighborhood. We make our way through the crowd and cross the bridge, in the lower area, where pedestrians and cars pass, to go to the other side of the river and watch the city from another perspective.
We go up to the top floor of the Espaco Porto Cruz, where we can taste the Port wine and wait here for the dark and for the city to light up while sipping a glass of wine. We have dinner in a small wine shop in the centre.
DINNER: Taberna do Largo
DAY 10
Porto - Zamora
We walk to a more peripheral area of the city to visit the Casa da Musica. We make a pit stop for breakfast in a covered market. After a few steps around the building, we return to the center, and again on the river, this time passing by the upper part of the bridge, reserved for trams, which connects the upper portion of the city to the opposite bank. A few photos and a tour of the city centre among vintage bars and shops.
In the late afternoon we leave to start the (long) journey home. This time we stop in Zamora, which we discover to be another beautiful Spanish treasure. Modern and ancient architecture, all in a harmonious melange, accompany the rest of the day, until dinner, in a tapas bar in the center, where we eat among the best tapas found in Spain!
DINNER: Agape
We leave again and travel until late at night, with the usual night stop of a few hours to rest for a while.
DAY 11
Andorra - Valensole
On the way home, we pass by Andorra La Vella, curious about this place and eager to add a flag on our planisphere. Apart from the heavy rain, the city is a total disappointment, a heap of unsightly and grey buildings, squashed into a small valley full of parking lots and shopping centres. We cheer up ourselves with a stop for a couple of tapas, and make some purchases in this duty-free island, and we immediately leave to France.
We arrive late in the evening to our next destination, a farmhouse scattered in the Provencal countryside, not far from Valensole. You can't see anything in the dark, but you can smell lavender all around. Once in the hotel, we refresh and go to sleep, among the insects that invade our room.
DAY 13
Valensole - Zurich
We wake up before dawn and walk a few random streets trying to find some lavender fields for our photo shoot of Provence. After a few failures, we finally find the perfect Provencal landscape and manage to take beautiful photos of these immense expanses of lavender fields, scented and teeming with bees.
We leave again in the afternoon and return to Zurich.
This content is NOT SPONSORED, but based on my genuine personal experience. Spontaneous opinions, positive and negative, shareable or not, that I hope will help to live better travel experiences. My advice is a guide to lead you through world explorations, but the real journey, you build it!
