Our winter trip to Portugal seems so long ago…I guess because it’s been five months! To trick the kids into writing journal during the trip I kept a journal myself. Thanks to pandemic boredom, here it is!
13 and 14 December 2019: Dulles to Lisbon
We caught the TAP 232 red eye flight from Dulles to Lisbon. I didn’t sleep much but I did get to watch Detective Pikachu and most of a Portuguese drama so that was good. The kids were mostly okay on the flight – it was just a little longer than a flight to Seattle so not outside our experience really. We made it through a pretty long line at passport control and then breezed through customs.
We all crammed into a minivan taxi and headed straight to the Airbnb apartment in Bairro Alto. It was a bit of a struggle getting all of the bags up the stairs but we found the apartment clean and nice with plenty of space for all of us. We hit the street and headed down the hill to the mall to find Vodafone for SIM cards. We had lunch along the way at a tiny cafe, a two-person operation where one was a toddler watching cartoons. I had garlic shrimp, which were very salty and good. Mandi and Mike got their phones working but Bette’s turned out to be locked. She got it working days later, but it took a lot of talking to AT&T. On our way up the hill we grabbed some snacks and headed to the apartment to try to avoid sleeping as long as possible – we did okay.
15 December 2019: Lisbon
We slept a lot! With a break at midnight or 2 am to chat with a kid. We finally got up at 10 am and headed out for a fine breakfast of coffee and natas a little up the hill at Padaria de São Roque. After that we headed down the hill to get Viva Viagem cards. We immediately used them to ride the 12E street car around the castelo. Crowded but fun! Next we walked down to the Praça do Comércio. Wandered around a bit in the wind and rain then took shelter for lunch at Aura Lisboa (AKA Texas Pizza). After lunch we hopped the 28E trolley up to the castelo entrance. We enjoyed the terrific views of the city. On the way down the hill it started pouring so we hopped in a tuk tuk for a fun ride back to Bairro Alto. We dried out at the apartment a bit while Mandi made reservations for dinner at Carmo, a Rick Steves recommendation. Ate my first octopus of the trip there!
16 December 2019: Lisbon to Tavira
Up at 7:30 am, packed up and hit the rainy street to catch an Uber and a taxi to Sete Rios train station. We all met up at the station successfully for a snack and coffee before hopping on the train to Faro. The ride south was beautiful, especially the ride over the Ponte 25 de Abril. We saw a ton of huge orange groves and ruined farmhouses along the way. At the station in Faro we switched to our train to Tavira, a bit like switching from Amtrak to NJ Transit – both trains were clean but the one to Tavira was a bit worn. We found the villa a short walk down the hill from the train station and had to wait a few minutes for our host to meet us and let us in. We got our stuff dropped off and set off into town for snacks, espresso and chestnuts for me. We walked across the Ponte Romana and explored a bit. We found Veganices, a small natural foods shop and bought a few things. Back to the villa to get settled before our dinner reservation at the gastropub next door, Come na Gaveta. It was so good we returned several times. Highlights: more octopus, pica-pau, and baccalau with chickpeas. After dinner we walked down to the river to find gelato.
17 December 2019: Tavira
Up at 9, out the door around 11 am. We walked down the hill and around a bit until we ended up at one of the restaurants at the Mercado da Ribeira, Marisqueria Praça Velha. I had grilled sardines, some of the best of the trip. Oddly, the place had terrible Google reviews – it was comparatively expensive but still pretty good? Next we headed to the Castelo, where we climbed around and enjoyed the nice views of town. We headed back down the hill and across the bridge to explore the east side of town. We walked uphill to the Ermida de Santa Ana, one of the many churches of Tavira. Then we walked back down the hill to an Irish bar, The Black Anchor, for drinks. Mike took the kids back to the villa while the rest of us went shopping. We found a funny store that was touristy on the ground floor and a…variety shop? on the second floor. I got some cool pens. My Tavira photos on Instagram got like-spammed by a local restaurant, Alvaro de Campos, so we decided to eat dinner there. It was great, especially the cheese and charcuterie board and Mandi’s fish stew.
18 December 2019: Tavira
Woke up late again. Oliver went off with Bette and Mike, Sophia came with Mandi and I. We had lunch at an Indian place called Dawat, formerly Taj Mahal. I had the Frango Shashlik tandoori, which was very good. We shopped our way back up the hill to the villa. I picked up a pourover dripper but could not find coffee filters. Luckily there were some basket filters at the villa so I made a cup before we headed back out. We met up with Oliver, Bette, and Mike at the mercado for a Christmas jazz (?) show. Sophia had a nutella waffle from the place by the mercado. Leftovers for dinner!
19 December 2019: Tavira
Woke up late again! We went to Artefact, a little restaurant on the street behind the villa, for lunch. I had the dorado 2 ways, really good. We walked by the convent/pousada and spotted the youth hostel. I got more castanhas. We walked down to the big mercado just as it was closing. Oliver, Bette, and I crossed the big bridge and walked through town to cross back over at the Ponte Romana. We saw two black cats, very lucky. We went to the little mercado for a terrific flamenco show – ridiculously good guitar playing. Took a break at the villa, then headed back out for a guitar orchestra show at the Igreja da Misericordia. So good, but Sophia had to Get Out so she and I walked down to visit the turtles at the pergola. We met up with the others at the big Christmas tree and walked up the hill to Come na Gaveta for dinner. The baccalhau, black pork, and asparagus were so good.
20 December 2019: Tavira to Faro and back
Fetch a rental car day! We woke up early-ish and headed to the train station at 9:30. The train was broken so we had to catch a bus instead. The bus took the long and winding way so we got to Faro around 11 am. We walked around Faro’s old town until around noon and stopped for lunch at the rather touristy Restaurante Cidade Velha. Mandi and I had the frango piri piri, which wasn’t spicy at all but still pretty good. We strolled our way to the Igreja do Carmo, shopping as we went. It was unfortunately closed until 3 pm so we found a cafe, Cherry, for snacks. After that we headed back to the church to check out the bone chapel. It was cool I guess? Sophia was interested in the nativity scene so the gentleman setting it up insisted she hop the rope and get a photo right next to it! Next we made our way to the train station to catch taxis to the airport. Picked up our rental cars at Avis and headed back to Tavira after a…minor wrong turn detour.
Parking in Tavira was generally easy – we just needed to either park in a non-pay spot or carry around enough change to pay. Unfortunately, the spots right in front of the villa were pay spots so we ended up spending a few Euros when those were open.
We crossed the rio for dinner at Nó de Gosto, which turned out to be another very fine meal. The black pork, tuna, and lamb were all amazing. They even had a sugar-free date-cocoa bon bon that I could eat.
21 December 2019: Tavira to Silves and back
Got up early-ish! We headed to the mercado and bought a few things. Dropped them off at the villa and hit the road for Silves. Oliver went with Bette and Mike in the Fiat, a common theme on the trip. Sophia, Mandi, and I parked and walked up the hill to the castelo. We met up with the others for lunch at Cafe Ingles, which was mildly touristy but really good. I had an octopus salad that was tasty and way too big. We walked all over the big castelo, and especially liked the underground lynx display. After that we were all looking for lynx on our drives, but obviously never saw one because they’re extremely rare. We stopped at a tiny cafe in an alley for a drink and rest and met a nice cat. On the way down the hill we stopped at the archaeology museum. We explored the downtown Christmas area a bit and drove back to Tavira.
22 December 2019: Tavira to the Ilha and back
We took the ferry out to the Ilha! We had lunch at the only open restaurant that was open out there, Sal I think. Oliver didn’t like his razor clams so I got to eat a bunch of them – they were…not great I guess? We played at the beach a bit, and collected some trash. Not that there was a lot, we just like to pick up trash. I got mad at Mandi because she was slow to get on the return ferry, but she made it so I was definitely wrong. We had dinner at the pizza place a couple of doors down from the villa. I didn’t throw up or anything, but felt sick – maybe those clams?
23 December 2019: Tavira
I felt rotten in the morning but got moving anyway. We had breakfast at Flavour Cafe, a chain place serving…I guess British-style breakfast? The full English breakfast included some comically long hot dogs. I had bacon and eggs. Bette, Mike, and Oliver headed off to find the local artist cooperative place while Mandi, Sophia, and I headed to the mercado to get xmas food supplies. We all had dinner at Dawat.
24 December 2019: Tavira
We had lunch at Gilão at the little mercado. I tried their sardines, which were good (but the ones at the place next door were better). Oliver got a huge lump of tuna so I ate a bunch of that too. We headed back to the villa, then to Praia do Perto da Forte do Rato for some beach time then a fine sunset. The kids found some cute little sea stars in the tide pools. We had various leftovers for dinner back at the villa.
25 December 2019: Tavira to Pedras d’El Rei and back
Merry xmas! We made a frittata with our mercado ingredients and headed to wander around Tavira. We found an open bar across the bridge and had some drinks and snacks. Back to the villa, then we drove down the coast to Pedras d’El Rei to visit the anchor cemetery. We should have waited to take the cute train out but we were impatient so we walked out to the beach. The beach was so cool! There was a huge sand shelf from the high surf the day before. By the time we were ready to head back the train was shut down so we had to walk. Back to the villa for snacks and another leftover dinner.
26 December 2019: Tavira to Sagres and back
We ate breakfast and hit the road for Sagres, stopping at the Silves rest stop for gas and snacks. We took a short detour to visit a standing stone. Probably should have stopped for lunch first, but we went straight to the Fortress. We walked all along the cliffs and saw so many people fishing. We even saw a couple of them haul fish all the way up. After the long walk around the fortress we were very hungry so we went found lunch in Sagres at a bar. I ordered frango piri piri but ended up eating a bunch of Mandi and Mike’s squid, which was a bit funky – I think they just grilled them whole, without cleaning them? Afterwards we hit the beach below Sagres. I collected a bunch of cool trash and met a nice black cat. After stopping for gelato we joined the migration out to Cabo de São Vicente for an amazing sunset. We headed back to Tavira and the villa for a snacky dinner.
27 December 2019: Tavira to Alcoutim and back
Drove to Alcoutim. We parked and got coffee, then hopped on the little ferry across the Guadiana to Sanlúcar de Guadiana, Spain. It was extremely quiet. We walked up the hill and around the iglesia, then back down to the river to find lunch. We definitely had a Language Challenge, but we managed to get some food. We rode the ferry back across to Alcoutim and toured the Castelo. After a very short drive back to Tavira we went to the mercado to pick up some yogurt and snacks at the little German organic shop. We returned to Come na Gaveta for dinner – so good!
28 December 2019: Tavira to Loulé and back
We headed to Loulé, a substantial city back towards Faro. First we checked out the flea market, which was…okay I guess? It wasn’t as cool as I expected, but we found it and it was open, so I’m calling that a success. Next we headed to the Municipal Market, where parking was quite a challenge so we ended up doing a bit of walking to get there. The coffee shop there had hands down the best espresso I had in Portugal – and I had a lot of espressos! We got a few snacks at the market and found lunch at a tapas bar close by. We tried chouriço asado, which set off the smoke alarm repeatedly but was delicious. We walked to the Castelo, which was a bit underwhelming. The kids rode a hand-cranked carousel in the courtyard though, so that was awesome. We grabbed some coffee and chestnuts and headed back to Tavira. We went to Nos de Gosto for dinner again – their orange port was so good!
29 December 2019: Tavira
We just ate our way around Tavira, first to Flavour Cafe, then to The Black Anchor for lunch, then to Punjab Palace for dinner.
30 December 2019: Tavira to Monchique and back
We drove to Monchique, a little town in the mountains. We were hungry so we hit the first restaurant we spotted, O Parque, right on the town square. I picked something that sounded like it could be good and got steak with garlic chimichurri, delicious! We didn’t have a particular mission in town so we just wandered around, which I thought was fun but I think drove everyone else a little crazy. We stopped for drinks and snacks at Ochálá, which was cozy and just nice? We shopped our way back to the cars and drove up the mountain. We stopped at a viewpoint with a fountain then continued up to the top. The kids and I climbed a boulder pile for a better view. Back in Tavira, we had pizza from the place just down the hill for dinner.
31 December 2019: Tavira
New Year’s Eve! We didn’t do much. We walked down the hill and found breakfast at Atamarte. They had a couple of gluten-free/paleo things that I’m pretty sure had sugar but maybe it was coconut sugar? We had dinner at Dawat. We didn’t stay out for the festivities, but could definitely hear the partying going on.
1 January 2020: Tavira
We woke up late and had brunch at Flavour Cafe. We walked up to the playground park and found a couple more churches along the way. We had dinner at a place next to Punjab Palace because they had chicken piri piri on the menu but it wasn’t very good.
2 January 2020: Tavira to Lagos and back
To Lagos! I reserved seats on a grotto tour with Blue Fleet the night before. We found their kiosk and got rescheduled onto an earlier tour. We ate a quick breakfast at a place on the marina, Artesão I think. The tour was great! Our captain was extremely skilled at getting the open skiff right up to the rocks without bumping so we enjoyed some nice views of the shoreline. Oliver got to drive the boat on the way back! After the tour we walked around Lagos a bit and had a late lunch at Imperio do Mar, where I finally got a pretty good chicken piri piri. We checked out the castelo and fortalezza as the sun set then drove back to Tavira.
3 January 2020: Tavira to Vila Real de Santo António and back
We got moving and drove to Vila Real de Santo António. We were thinking about taking the ferry to Spain but we just ended up having lunch and walking around instead. We stumbled into one of the best meals of the trip at Cantarinha do Guadiana. The standout dish was probably Bette’s octopus, which she was very brave to order. At the Praça I sampled a piece of dried and grilled octopus that was definitely one of the worst things I’ve ever attempted to eat. Just ridiculously bad! We got some dried dates on the vine that were very good to make up for it.
The kids needed some beach time so we drove out to the Foz do Guadiana. We ended up walking way more than necessary – we couldn’t tell whether it was possible to drive out the one-lane road or not so we parked really far back. Later I walked back and got the car so the extremely wet and sandy kids didn’t have to walk quite so far. We saw a lot of well taken care of stray cats. Some had little kitty apartments! Lots of shore fishing was going on, especially at out at the point. We drove back to Tavira with some very wet and sandy kids. For dinner we finally tried the restaurant across the street, Avenida. My pork and clams was was pretty good, and Sophia got an amazing banana split.
4 January 2020: Tavira to Olhão and back
Mandi and the kids got haircuts while Bette, Mike, and I walked to the big mercado. We bought some food and wandered around the sprawling flea market. Like, a real flea market, not like that fake one in Loulé! I almost got some door knockers and glass balls. We met back up with Mandi and the kids and headed to Olhão. We had no real plan there so we just had lunch at a restaurant (jazz club?) at the market and wandered around a bit. On the way back we stopped in Santa Luzia for an amazing sunset. Everyone was ready to get back to Tavira so we headed back for takeout pizza for dinner.
5 January 2020: Tavira
Bette and Mike went on a solo trip to Vila Real de Santo António so the rest of us entertained ourselves in Tavira. We had great lunch at A Ver, the Michelin starred place by the Castelo. I got octopus again, which was really good. We walked around town a lot, then had dinner at Come na Gaveta again – probably the kids’ favorite spot in town.
6 January 2020: Tavira
Our last full day in Tavira! We finally went to the Camera Obscura. We got a nice look at town and a great lecture about the town. We wandered around a while and stopped for lunch at Scoop It, a former ice cream shop that’s now a…tasca I guess? We had chouriço asado, which was amazing. My bacalhau salad was also great. Bette and Mike made it back from their adventure and we went to Nos de Gosto one last terrific dinner.
7 January 2020: Tavira to Évora
We checked out of the villa and took a walk down to the square one last time, then headed for Évora. We stopped along in Mértola along the way for lunch and castle exploring. A lot of the castle was an archaeological site, with a lot of interpretive information. We finally started seeing cork trees between Mértola and Évora.
We expected parking in Évora to be a little crazy and it did not disappoint. I connected with our apartment host after a short delay and we got settled in. We had dinner at Dona Ines II, a rather empty but good place a few steps up the street.
8 January: Évora
We had a quick breakfast then met Mario and his driver at the Praça do Giraldo for a tour of the local megaliths. Our first stop was at the spectacular Almendres Cromlech, an oval-ish arrangement of standing stones on a hillside. We had it to ourselves for a couple of minutes before a crowd of geography students arrived to study. Next we visited a nearby menir, a tall sighting stone once visible from the cromlech. Finally, we visited a huge dolmen, an exposed burial mound. We learned a lot!
Along our way back to Évora Mario suggested a place called St Luis for lunch so we made our way there through the narrow streets. It was really good! After that we wandered around town to find the aquaduct, then followed it to a gate in the old town wall. We made our way around to another old gate and back up the hill to the amazing Roman Temple. We had dinner at Pateo, which was good but really cold.
9 January: Évora to Lisbon
We got moving early and caught a couple of taxis to the train station. After a pretty short train ride we were back at the Lisbon train station. We caught taxis to our apartment in Chiado and managed to check in early and get settled. I think I liked our first Lisbon apartment better because it felt more homey, but this one was fine. We caught an electric tuk tuk to Belem for lunch at Os Geranimos, a Rick Steves recommendation. It was great – extremely busy but the food came very quickly. I had the sardines and they were perfectly crispy and salty. We got some natas from the very busy Pastéis de Belém and made our way to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, a huge monument dedicated to Portuguese explorers. We paid to go up to enjoy the view, which was nice but the kids couldn’t see anything without a boost. We meandered on to our real destination, Belém Tower. The kids and I loved it! It has so many little alcoves with views of the Tagus River. And it looks amazing. We got rained on a little on our way back to catch a tram, then made our way back to the apartment for a break. We had dinner at a fancy restaurant, Pateo at Bairro do Avillez. There was some kind of crazy party happening upstairs with a live band so we got some “free” entertainment!
10 January: Lisbon to Sintra and back
To Sintra! We caught a train around 11 am, then hopped on the bus up to Pena Palace. We arrived hangry so we had lunch at the cafeteria restaurant, which was not bad considering. We explored the palace then went wandering and got lost. Sophia and I got separate from the others at some point and had to text them to get reunited. We caught the bus back to the train station and caught the train back to Lisbon. We missed so much!We got take out poke from across the street for dinner.
11 January: Lisbon
We rolled out of bed a bit late. Bette and Mike went shopping after breakfast at Pop Cereal Cafe. Mandi, the kids, and I hopped on the 28 tram for a ride through Alfama. We meandered our way back on foot to meet Bette and Mike at El Rei do Frango, another Rick Steves recommendation that proved amazing. Maybe the best lunch ever. I had a whole sea bass. So good.
Remember that tuk tuk ride to Belém? We connected with our driver, Gonçalo, for an afternoon tour of Lisbon with a sunset finish. He brought us to a bunch of sights that we had missed, and told us all about the history and street art of the city. The stop at the Roman Theater was very enlightening – there’s are rich layers of history buried under the streets of Lisbon. The sunset spot was very crowded, but the view was amazing. We took a break back at the apartment, then walked to Duque for dinner. I had the octopus, of course.
12 January: Lisbon to Dulles
We had to be out of the apartment at 10 am, but didn’t need to be at the airport until the afternoon, so we dropped our bags off with a guy at the mall down the street and went wandering around. The kids loved it so we had breakfast at Pop Cereal Cafe again. We had lunch at Chiado Terrasse, a snack at A Padaria, then collected our bags and headed to the airport. After some last-minute airport shopping we hopped on the plane and flew home. What a trip!
