Portugal Itinerary

Nothing beats getting 20 Euro Round Trip tickets, even when it takes you to a city where you are pretty blah about. For us, that was Porto, Portugal. Because we wanted to take advantage of our time in Portugal I came up with a Portugal Road trip! Porto was a nice starting point, but for me the highlight was Lisbon. It is Portugal's capital for a reason! Here's my itinerary for a weekend in Portugal!

Day One: Lisbon

Arrive Porto

Drive to Lisbon (2hrs)

Explore Lisbon

Night in Lisbon

Day Two: Sintra

Drive to Sintra (40 mins) (By car or Train)

Explore Sintra

Night in Lisbon

Day Three: Porto

Explore Lisbon (Missed Places)

Drive to Porto (2 hrs)

Explore Porto

Night in Porto

Day Four:

Depart Porto

It seems like a rushed trip, but I felt like we saw a lot of amazing things. Although I hear a lot of people swear that Porto was worth spending a whole weekend. I'm glad we took the advice from Rick Steves and saw Lisbon and Sintra!

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Lisbon, Portugal

Ever heard of Lisbon, Portugal? No? Yeah, me either. Not until I started looking at places to go in Portugal. Did you know that Lisbon is Portugal's capital? I don't know why more people don't know  about Lisbon, because it is a beautiful city!

After picking up our rental car in Porto, we headed straight down to Lisbon. Since Lisbon is 2 hrs away from Porto we wanted as much time as possible in the city.

Since we arrived earlier than we thought, we weren't able to check into to our apartment, so instead we parked the car and decided to walk into town.

Lisbon is such a colorful city. We must have taken over a hundred photos in the first day! If you ever go to Lisbon I dare you not to take photos around every corner!

Our apartment was located near the Alfama. The Alfama is the colorful sailors' quarter that dates back to the age of Visigoth occupation, from the 6th to 8th centuries AD. During the Moorish period it was a bustling district, before it became home to Lisbon's fisherman and mariners The Alfama's tangled street plan is one of the few features of Lisbon to survive the 1755 earthquake.

On our way down to the main square, we passed the Lisbon Cathedral. It's absolutely beautiful on the outside! There are a lot of tour guides with little 3-wheeled cars, looking to take people around the city. They didn't seem badly priced but we were looking for a place to eat and didn't want to stop.

We ended up at the Praça do Comérico (Trade Square) - it is a riverfront square that borders the Baixa, ships used to dock and sell their good. The locals call this place "Palace Square", it was the site of Portugal's royal palace for 200 years before the earthquakes. These days government ministries surround the Praça do Comérico.

In the middle of the square is the statue is of King José I. He was the man who gave control of the government to Pombal who rebuilt the city after the earthquake. Built 20 years after the quake, it shows the king on his horse looking at their port.

Another main attraction in the square is the Rua Augusta Arch. It is a triumphant stone arch-like historical building and visitor attraction. It is located in Commerce Square, it was built to commemorate the city's reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake.

By the time we made it down to the square, it was time to turn around and check into our apartment, so we started the journey uphill back to the apartment. I rented an apartment through booking.com, it was such a cute apartment, free parking (street parking) although the outside was pretty shady- the inside was adorable.

We had the top floor apartment, which gave us a great view of the city and the April 25th bridge (aka the Golden Gate Bridge's twin) The apartment was for 4 people and it was 76 euros for 2 nights! I love apartments. I wish I felt better about airbnb because that's just the way to travel!  By renting an apartment we were able to save money by making breakfast and dinner- even though eating at restaurants in Portugal is pretty cheap.

After getting settled into our hotel, we decided to drive down to the monument, Padrão dos Descobrimentos, it is a concrete monument to maritime explorers. We found parking next to the Jeronimos Monastery, which is a a World Heritage Gothic Monastery. I wouldn't worry about being able to find a spot down there, there were lots of places to park.

The Jeronimos Monastery was build by King Manuel it is made up of white limestone and stretches 300 yards along the Lisbon waterfront. It serves as a thank you for the discoveries made by the early Portuguese explorers. Manuel built the church on the site of a humble chapel where sailors spent their last night ashore in prayer before embarking on frightening voyages. Of course half of it was covered in scaffolding! That's just the price we pay for travelling in the off season.

We followed the crowd of people to the underground walkway. Unlike in Paris, we didn't try to run across the busy street, although we joked about it later. (For those that don't know the story, when we visited Paris, we didn't know there was an underground staircase, and Drew and I ran across the round-a-bout of the Arch de Triumph... which is one of the busiest traffic circles in Europe!)

At the base of Padrão dos Descobrimentos, there is a world map showing everywhere Portuguese explores traveled.

If you look out to the river, you'l notice that Lisbon has it's own Golden Gate Bridge, it's called the 25th of April bridge.  It is 1.5 miles and one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. The foundations are 260 feet below the surface, making it the world's deepest bride! It was built by the same company who built the Golden Gate Bride in 1966. It was originally named for dictator Salazar, but was renamed in 1974 for the date of Portugal's revolution and liberation.

Across the bridge you'll see that Lisbon also has a Christ Rei (Christ of Majesty) which is a mini version of the "Christ the Redeemer" monument in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Lisbon is just a mix of everything! How can you not love this place?!

The Padrão dos Descobrimentos monument was pretty impressive. We talked about heading to the top of the monument, but we weren't sure if we had to climb stairs and pay a fee, and if there's one thing I hate more than heights, it's stairs. (For future reference, you don't have to climb stairs! For 3 Euros there's an elevator that will take you to the top)

From the Padrão dos Descobrimentos we decided to walk down to the white Belém Tower. By this time I was starving and we stopped off at a street vendor for a, HOT DOG. A hot dog in Portugal? I know it sounds weird, but it was amazing! Interestingly enough, Lisbon has street food vendors all over the place, and they apparently LOVE hot dogs!

It's a bacon-cheddar hot dog with crispy onions!!

The walk down to the Belém Tower looks like it would be a short one, but it ended up taking longer than I thought, maybe the jet-lag was kicking in? At the time I thought it was a castle, but after further research I found out that it was built to protected Lisbon's harbor. Today it symbolizes the voyages that made Lisbon powerful with carved stone representing ropes, Manuel's coat of arms, armillary spheres, and shields with the cross of Manuel's military, called the Order of the Cross. This was the last sight the sailors saw as they left and the first as they returned loaded with gold, spices, and diseases.

Once we got to Belém Tower, my feet were aching and all I wanted to do was sit and take a little break. Since Drew loves military museums and monuments, he walked over to Museu do Combatente (Combatant Museum) to see the Aos Combatentes do Ultramar (Tomb of the Unknown Soldier), which is right next to the Belém Tower.

Because the sun started to set, we decided to head back to the car and head back to the apartment, since we were both feeling a little lazy, we decided to walk around and see if we could find a restaurant that had something we might want. We ended up stopping at the first restaurant! For 40 euros total, Drew and I had appetizers, a 3 course dinner, and a pitcher of Sangria! You really can't go wrong with that, and the food was great! If you're a fan of seafood, you'll LOVE Lisbon, they have fantastic seafood at VERY reasonable prices.

The night before we left Lisbon, we decided to head to São Jorge Castle. We heard that it was the best place to watch the sun set. I'm still bitter about this... we got to the ticket booth as the security guard closed the door, and when we tried to open it, it was locked. I guess we annoyed the guard when we tried to open it because he opened the door with an attitude and said that it was closed! If we had gotten there 10 seconds before hand we would've made it! We were both a little bitter, but I took it as a blessing since that was the night Drew rolled his ankle in Sintra! Still, that didn't stop Drew from hopping a fence and climbing on top of the castle's gate to try and get a picture of what we would have seen, had we got in to the castle.

To the top-right of this picture, you can see people standing in the Castle court-yard. As you can kinda tell from the picture, it really would have offered great views of the sunset.

The next morning, we packed up our things and headed off to Porto. Looking back I wish we would've stayed a little bit longer in Lisbon, but I can honestly say I enjoyed Lisbon. If you've ever been to San Francisco and loved it, you'll love Lisbon. Drew loved Lisbon so much, I can't wait to show him how awesome San Francisco is!

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Sintra, Portugal

If you've ever been to Lisbon and not visited Sintra, you've sorely missed out. Sintra is located 25 km west of Lisbon. After our amazing first day in Lisbon we did some research and decided that it was going to be smarter to take public transportation into Lisbon, and leave the rental car at the apartment.

We woke up early enough, but by the time we left I was having doubts about taking the train, since everything I read said that during Summer parking was difficult. So we decided to drive. It was an easy drive to Sintra. I plugged Pena Palace into the GPS and we followed it to the top of Sintra.

Sintra is a picturesque Portuguese town that is set amidst the pine covered hills of the Serra de Sintra, just to the west of Lisbon. This slightly cooler climate attracted the nobility and elite of Portugal, who constructed exquisite palaces, extravagant residences and decorative gardens. The variety of fascinating monuments and historic buildings makes Sintra a highly regarded tourist destination and is a popular day trip from Lisbon.

Sintra is known for its many 19th-century Romantic architectural monuments, which has resulted in its classification as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although its heritage in buildings and nature is the most visible face of the historic individuality of Sintra, a whole literary heritage has made the area a legendary reference in Portuguese culture. Because of it's proximity of Lisbon (Portugal's captial) it's the perfect day trip.

Sintra is a small town. If you choose to drive, make sure you have a little car to fit through all of the one way roads that have a row of cars lined up on both ends. If you're visiting Sintra during "Season", April-November. DO NOT drive. Everything I read/researched highly suggests to take the train because you will not find parking in Sintra. We looked at taking the train from Lisbon, it's costs 4 Euro RT per person and once you arrive in Sintra, there are tour guides outside of the train station--or you can take the #434 up to the sights. It costs 5 Euros pp with the last bus loop at 1700. If you're training it in, I'd suggest taking the bus up!

Since we drove, we followed the GPS to the Pena Palace, we arrived at the top of Sintra at 10:15a. I would suggest getting there early. When we arrived in the morning we had our pick of parking, same thing about downtown. When we headed to the downtown area at 2:30p, parking was easy to find, when we left 2 hours later, there wasn't a parking spot to be found.

I think we were lucky since it was off season, on the official website it says that there are only 20 parking spots next to Pena Palace. I'm not sure when that was last updated, because there are a few spots next to the palace, but there are parking lots along the way up! But the road up is only one way, so if you try to get a parking spot up close and it's full, then you're SOL and you'll have to drive all the way around (over 10 minutes to drive the loop and come back up).

I would suggest the parking lot after the Moorish Castle. It's the 2nd to the last parking lot. It is the perfect spot. Originally we had planned to park there, but I saw a sign for another parking lot and I thought it was going to be closer...it isn't. I won't bore you with the details about the crazy long UP HILL hike we had to do just to get to the entrance, but I'll tell you that I wasn't a happy camper! If you've read my blog before, you know I'm not a fan of hiking.

When we finally made it to the entrance, we had to decide where we wanted to go. If we bought tickets to multiple attractions we could get a combination discount. BUT only if we bought them together (you're not able to buy one then decide you want another one and get the discount). The entrance fee to Pena Palace is pretty expensive. It was 11.50 pp, since it was off season, (I'm used to paying about 5 Euros) we knew we wanted to see the Moorish Castle too, which was 6.50 so we bought tickets to both. (You can also buy tickets online) For the two of us, it cost 34 euros with the combination discount. For those with kids, they also offer family discounts.

Looking back now, if we walked up from the Moorish Castle, we wouldn't have had to pay the entrance fee, because the fee was to go inside of the palace, but you live and learn.

Once you're inside the palace gates, you can chose to pay & wait for a mini bus to take you up to the Palace, or you can walk (the bus is 3 euros pp and comes every 15 minutes) Instead of paying, we decided to walk up hill to the palace. It is a 550 m hike up hill, with a 14% incline... just in case you were wondering.

As you can tell in my video--I was a little bit winded by the time we got to the top. I didn't even realize I called Pena Palace, Sintra Palace. Whoops!

The views from the palace are absolutely beautiful. The palace from the outside is marvelous! I love the colors and just the look of the castle! We must've taken hundreds of photos of just the outside!

Since we purchased tickets, we decided to check out what was so special about it. The palace is still in tact from when the last Portuguese monarch lived inside! You are able to take non-flash photos on the inside. But the views from the balcony is what I thought was the greatest thing. Thankfully, it was a clear day. There was a tour guide outside and I heard her saying that some times during the summer you can't see anything. We were able to see clear back to Lisbon and the April 25th bridge (Golden Gate twin). Which is apparently pretty special to be there on a day that clear. It's not very common to be able to see the bridge.

The palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal. It is also used for state occasions by the President of the Portuguese Republic and other government officials. There is a small cafe that sells snacks and a restaurant that offers hot meals, for those looking for a bite to eat or a place to sit.

  

After leaving Pena Palace, we decided to walk down to the Moorish Castle. From Pena Palace, we followed the pathway down to the Moorish Castle, but instead of continuing down the path, we decided to hop the fence, unfortunately we underestimated the drop down and Drew rolled his ankle and it swelled to the size of a grapefruit! He was such a trooper though, he kept walking on it, and hiked all over the Moorish Castle.

The Moorish Castle was constructed during the 8th and 9th centuries, during the period of Muslim Iberia, as the central place in a territory that was primarily agricultural, and which was necessary to protect its population. It was taken by Christian forces from the Moors after the fall of Lisbon, it was an important strategic point during the Reconquista, and classified as a National Monument.

The castle is an irregularly planned military outpost that follows a 450 m perimeter on top of a mountainous cliff, oriented southwest to northwest. It consists of a double line of military walls that meanders over the granite terrain of the promontory.

This place was incredible! I would definitely suggest checking it out. We were able to get some great pictures of Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle. I just wish the sun would'be cooperated!

After walking around the Moorish Castle we were starving and decided to grab some lunch in Sintra, so we headed to the Historical Center. This is where you want to check out once you're done. But make sure to get there early, there were lots of parking spots when we arrived, but once we left there wasn't a spot to be found.

We found some street parking along the main road, and headed into the old town. We ended up finding a cheap little restaurant next to Sintra Palace (I got the names of Pena Palace and Sintra Palace confused in my video). We ended up having an amazing 3-course lunch for 30 Euros. Drew and I were stuffed by the end of it.

The restaurant's patio had a great view of the Moorish Castle!

We picked this restaurant because they had pictures on their menu! Haha. I love menus with pictures. The restaurant we chose was actually the first restaurant we saw / looked at. But we looked at all the restaurants in the area, and came back to the first one. It actually worked out for us because it was one of the cheapest restaurants in the area (they feature  8 Euro meals) and the food was delicious.

The restaurant had a good selection of Portuguese food, and the cheesecake was great!

After our late lunch, we decided to head back to Lisbon. When we got back to the car, we noticed that a car had parked behind us on the crossing lane! Just a way to explain to you how parking is in Sintra; it's "get in where you fit in", even if it's illegal to park there. I guess the Portuguese are like the Spanish; they like to sleep in and are night owls, because the town was dead until after noon, then it very busy in the late afternoon.

We packed in a nice full day in Sintra, but we could've stayed and checked out more things. But I am so glad we took a trip out to Sintra.  For centuries Portugal's aristocracy considered Sintra the perfect place to escape from Lisbon and I can see why. I LOVED Sintra. If I could've spent my whole weekend in Sintra, I probably would have. If you're headed to Lisbon make sure to take a day out of your trip and check out Sintra. It will not disappoint you.  

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