2 weekends ago we spent the long weekend in Portugal. It was such a treat to get out of London, as we hadn't taken a trip in Europe since November, when we went to Italy for a week.
The cheapest option when we booked our flights was to fly into Lisbon and out of Porto. I'd heard that the drive up the coast was comparable to Highway 1 up the coast of California, which was one of my favorite vacations ever (we went from Santa Barbara to San Francisco in 2009). To prep for our trip, I looked up the relevant 36 Hours articles that The New York Times puts out (links here: Lisbon, Cascais, Porto). I also read through the posts on The Senses Five and was pretty excited.
Unfortunately, we had limited time in each place, so we ended up booking a hotel on Hotwire for the first night in Lisbon and the last night in Porto. Hotwire is always a bit of a risk, but ultimately we were happy with both spots. While the location of our hotel in Lisbon could have been a bit better, it was really nice to arrive Friday night and have a really comfortable night at the VIP Grand Lisboa.
The hotel recommended Clube do Peixe for dinner, which was just across the street, and it may have been my favorite meal in Portugal, despite the fact that it wasn't all that central.
We managed to sleep in a bit on Saturday, but were able to get downtown and have a stroll before lunch and have a coffee and a Nada (the classic custard tart). What struck me most about Lisbon was how beautiful, but run down all of the old buildings are. It's definitely a city I could spend more time in. However, having lived in big cities for a while, I always like to escape the crowds when traveling, so there's nothing more appealing than a beach. So, that afternoon, we grabbed our stuff and took a commuter train 35 minutes up the coast to Cascais, which has been recommended to us by several people. More on that later...
In the meantime, here's a funny sign we saw on the tube. I feel like the caption could be something like 'Do not hump the door, as you may get trapped in them'?:
No comments :
Post a Comment