Portugal's Pleasures

Portugal (22nd Nov - 26th Nov 2007)

Rupesh and I spent almost 5 days on a road trip exploring Portugal. We basically covered a small loop beginning and ending in Lisbon.

Lisbon

Rupesh was impressed with our Fiat Punto that we picked up from Lisbon airport. I was more impressed that we made it in to central Lisbon and to our hostel without getting lost! The hostel had only been open for 3 weeks and didn't even have a sign out the front yet. The door to our room didn't quite shut properly yet either so we had to slide a cupboard in front of the door. But other than that it was really lovely place. It was just like staying in a big old house. The portugese couple managing the hostel spent a lot of time giving us lots of information on what to do and see in Portugal.

Manteigas

From Lisbon we headed to Manteigas which is in the middle of the Serra da Estrela National Park. It was a sensational day and from Manteigas there were amazing views down the valley. We drove up to Torre, the highest peak on mainland Portugal at 1993 metres. There was even snow up there and a snowboarder who I think was a being a bit ambitious about being able to go for a board. There is only one ski lift on top of Torre.

We had a lovely breakfast overlooking the valley the following morning and then wandered around town and drove up to a nearby waterfall.

Porto

The drive to Porto was spectaular as we took the route across the mountains. Getting in to Porto and finding our hotel took a significant amount of time. We saw more of the ring road than we cared to and seemed to keep accumulating more maps in the hope that it would help! It was also at this time that Rupesh & I made a rule - when entering the big cities I would drive and he would navigate!

Porto was really lovely and we spent the evening wandering around the streets, eating roasted chestnuts and visiting the biggest Christmas tree in Europe. It certainly was impressive, lit up at night and towering above everything else in Porto.

The following day after a whirlwind tour of Porto on an open top bus we boarded a Porto Cruz Boat for a cruise up the River Douro. The cruise boats once carried port from the vineyards along the river to town. And naturally there was red and white port aboard the boat to be sampled.

Cascais

From Porto we followed the west coast down to Cascais which is only half an hour out of Lisbon. Another really lovely hostel that clearly wasn't very old. It was like we were staying in a very classy beach house. We found a great seafood restaurant for dinner where the fish and the service was amazing.

Sintra

Before flying out of Lisbon airport back to London we spent the day driving along the coast and then headed inland to the village of Sintra perched high upon a hill. We didn't have time to explore both Lisbon and Sintra so we chose Sintra. Big cities are great to explore but it's nice to see more isolated places. Sintra was an old town with castles and palaces. We walked up to the castle perched on a hill and had some great views over Sintra and surounding towns.

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