Porto & Lisbon, Portugal

We originally planned this trip for our anniversary in July 2020. Right before we were supposed to go, Portugal’s COVID case rate went up and we had to cancel. We finally were able to make it happen in autumn 2022 and had such a lovely time. The scenery, the food and the people in Portugal were all wonderful.

Day 1

We arrived in Porto fairly late at night after a long day (Schiphol was such a nightmare that you had to arrive 4 hours early to wait in a 2+ hour security line) We were pretty tired so we first made our way to the Hilton Porto Gaia. It was a very nice hotel in a great area, just on the other side of the river from Porto. We walked to a nearby market and found a quick dinner and enjoyed the views before settling in for the night.

Day 2

On our first full day in Porto we woke up to go exploring. We had free breakfast at our hotel so after enjoying that we set out to walk across the bridge into Porto. We explored Porto for a few hours, enjoying the scenery and also a lot of very nice local shops.

After a few hours exploring the city we met up with some friends who happened to also be visiting Porto and tried a bifana with fries, which is basically a pork sandwich. Unfortunately I have truly no idea what this restaurant was called.

Jardins do Palácio de Cristal

After lunch we walked to the Crystal gardens to explore which had a very lovely view over the river.

Castro - Atelier de Pastéis de Nata

We also stopped to get our first pastel de nata. It was soo much better than any I had ever had! A warm, fresh pastel de nata with cinnamon on top is life changing (pastéis is plural of pastel!)

Livraria Lello

We checked out the super famous bookstore that supposedly inspired Harry Potter (JK Rowling herself has said it didn’t). It was beautiful but SO CROWDED it was pretty hard to really appreciate. If you do want to go I recommend booking ahead of time otherwise the line was crazy long.

Brasão Aliados

Finally we had dinner reservations to try the famous francesinha. It’s a very hearty sandwich of sausage, ham, cheese and more with a tomato beer sauce poured over and all baked in the oven. It comes with fries and is delicious. I decided to get a half portion which was definitely the right call. It was extremely delicious and veryyy rich.

On the way back we walked over the top level of the bridge. The view was beautiful but it was a bit scary.

Day 3

Manteigaria – Fábrica de Pastéis de Nata

On our third day we did some more exploring and some more pastel de nata eating.

Gazela

We also stopped at a “hot dog” (cachorrinhos) spot that Anthony Bourdain went to called Gazela. It was a little spicy and delicious with super quick service.

Taste Porto Food Tour

In the afternoon we went on a really excellent food tour. We tried bacalhau fritters (cod fritters) with tomato rice, pastel de chavez (a meat filled pastry), a pork filled sandwich, and some tinned fish (tinned fish is very popular in Portugal!). (I am very bad at remembering to take photos on food tours). Everything was great and it was a great intro to Porto with lots of information. I recommend doing this on your first day in Porto if you can! We wished later that we had more time to go back to some of the spots.

Sunset at Parque das Virtudes

After our tour we raced to Parque das Virtudes to see the sunset. The area was filled with people hanging out and having drinks and had a cool vibe. We grabbed a drink and settled in to enjoy the beautiful view.

The view on the walk back to Gaia was beautiful every time as well.

Day 4

Douro Valley sightseeing tour

On the fourth day we had booked a private sightseeing tour in the Douro valley. They drove us around to see how beautiful the valley was and took us to some small towns, a beautiful restaurant for lunch and a short cruise on the river. The valley is known for port wine, which it turns out I am not really a fan of. We did really love the views though as the landscape is extremely unique and beautiful. Our guide was also really knowledgeable and helpful.

Day 5

On day five we took a train to Lisbon and then another train to Cascais. It’s a small town on the coast near Lisbon. The train station in Gaia was basically straight up a cobblestone mountain but luckily my very kind husband carried my suitcase for me.

We checked into the Casa Vela Hotel in Cascais which had a really beautiful garden and a nice balcony. I would love to go back and spend longer there.

Moules & Gin

Cascais was very cute and we found a cute spot specializing in mussels. Every single person eating in the restaurant had an American accent which made me suspicious but I was told Cascais is just pretty touristy in general. Either way I really liked the mussels!

Boca do inferno

Later we walked a short distance to see the sunset at Boca do inferno, which translates to “mouth of hell”. It’s a reference to the waves crashing through this hole in the rocks. Apparently in high tide/rougher weather, the waves can get pretty crazy here. There is plenty of space to watch safely from above though.

Day 6

On day six we woke up early to go to Sintra. It’s a town with a lot of beautiful palaces and monuments around. Unfortunately it was so rainy and foggy on this day that some things were hard to see. I think there could be some really nice views from some of the spots. The fog did give it kind of a pretty eerie quality though.

Peña palace

This one was kind of a disappointment for me. I had seen so many pictures of this beautiful colorful palace and read that you should get there early. We went on a Friday hoping for less crowds and arrived maybe 15 minutes after opening. The lines were already insane. We figured it would be so crowded inside that it would ruin it so we just paid for a ticket to explore the gardens. They were nice and very large but with the bad weather it really wasn’t my favorite.

We also found a kitty trying to hide from the rain too.

Castle of the Moors

This castle was very cool and extremely old, and I think without the fog the views would have been spectacular. Alas, we had nothing but fog…

Quinta da Regaleira

This one was very cool but unfortunately the weather got so much worse as we got here. We wandered around forever looking for the famous spiral well but didn’t do much beyond that because of how rainy and foggy it was.

Casa Piriquita

Portugal is best known for pastel de nata but they have so many other well kept pastry secrets. We had to stop for some famous pastries in Sintra, Travesseiro (puff pastry with egg cream & almond) and Queijadas (like a little cinnamon cream cheese pie). The queijadas were my personal favorite.

A Nova Estrela

We finished off the day with dinner at A Nova Estrela. It was a very cute family owned restaurant with traditional Portugese dishes. We each had cod dishes which were very nice (cod is extremely popular in Portugal, they have over 100 ways to prepare it!). Mine was bacalhau com broa, which I think had cod, cornbread and maybe potatoes? They also take a polaroid of you that they gift you at the end of your meal!

Day 7

Of course the day after our very wet foggy Sintra day was beautiful. We took a walk around Cascais before it was time to head out.

Finally it was time to head to Lisbon. After days of walking everywhere we were pretty exhausted. We decided to take an Uber which wasn’t too expensive. We dropped our bags at our hotel (the Sheraton Lisboa) and then headed to do our Lisbon food tour.

Taste of Lisboa Food Tour

We decided to do a food tour in both cities because they both seemed so nice. We had an amazing time on both. In Lisbon we tried cheese, wine, salami, bifana (another type of pork sandwich), more cod fritters and tomato rice (even better ones!) and pastel de nata with coffee.

Day 8

By this point in our trip we were sooo tired. We had already walked and seen and eaten so much. We decided to carefully plan out our things to do in Lisbon since it’s a very big city and wandering around doesn’t work so well (also it is full of enormous hills!)

Shakar Coffee

Before heading out into Lisbon we got coffee and breakfast near our hotel. This place is super cute and has great coffee and breakfast options. I had turkish eggs and a salted caramel latte. I don’t think this is especially Portugese but I loved it.

Jerónimos Monastery

This beautiful monastery was built in the 1500s and is a popular tourist spot. It was absolutely stunning.

Belém Tower

Next we went to see the nearby Belém Tower which was a short (but very warm) walk. There was somebody selling popsicles outside which was extremely welcome in the warm weather.

Padrão dos Descobrimentos

Right next to the tower is the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of Discoveries). It’s a monument from the 1930s to the time of Portugese exploration of the world. You can pay a few euros to take an elevator to the top which has a beautiful view.

Timeout Market

From here we took a short train ride to the Timeout Market for lunch. We saw this on Somebody Feed Phil and wanted to try. We ended up getting Bacalhau à Brás (cod with potatoes), tempura green beans, a Portugese steak (that came with ham on top?) and of course more pastel de nata. It was all very delicious.

Jesus e Goes

After resting our tired feet and spending some time at the hotel spa, we headed out to Jesus e Goes. Goa was a Portugese colony so there is a Goan influence in Portugal. We also saw this restaurant on Somebody Feed Phil. We weren’t super hungry because of our big lunch so we just got a bunch of appetizers. It was absolutely fantastic! I think it was Austin’s favorite meal of the trip.

During our food tour we had walked through the Alfama neighborhood and there was a bar with live music and people sitting out on the steps. I really wanted to hear the music so we went back to try to hear it again after dinner. It turned out we arrived exactly too late and he was just finishing up! The vibe sitting outside was still really neat though.

Day 9

On day 9 it was quite warm (close to 90F) and we decided we should take advantage of a real beach day. Unfortunately at the time we had booked in Cascais it was not really warm enough to lay out on the beach.

We took the train to one of the closer beaches to Lisbon and paid €20 for a spot under a beach umbrella with chairs, since we didn’t have towels or anything of our own. This turned out to be perfect as we got some shade and they delivered things like smoothies and sandwiches from a nearby cafe.

Live music, part 2

We decided to try out looking for live music BEFORE dinner this time and we were lucky that we made it! There was a singer outside and we got to enjoy some live music sitting on the steps with lots of others. It was really cool!

Alfama Cellar

After our live music we went to have dinner at Alfama Cellar. This was a very small and cozy restaurant. We both got some kind of stew - mine was with lamb and Austin’s was with duck. It was absolutely delicous - so flavorful and warming. My only complaint was that I wished I had an entire loaf of bread to soak up all the sauce.

Day 10

On our last day we decided we wanted to explore the Alfama area in the daytime. It was a bit of a trek and we were so tired at this point so we decided to take public transit to the Alfama area. After seeing what tram we needed to get on, we went to wait. What we did not realize was that this tram is extremely famous with tourists and is basically a tourist attraction in itself. This means that if you don’t get on it at the very beginning or early in the morning, it’s basically too full to get on.

After about 6 trams going by that were too full to get on, we gave up and ordered an Uber.

After we finally got coffee, we decided to take ourselves on a little pastry tour.

Pastry tour

The owner of this pastry shop told me this was made with cream cheese but I didn’t catch the name. Some of my Portugese colleagues told me they think it is a queijada.

I have no idea what this was, it had strawberry inside (a lot of this pastry tour consisted of us pointing to things in cases).

This one was my absolute favorite. It is a Pastel Feijão which is a pastry filled with bean paste. It tasted like creme brulee magic. I don’t know how to describe it but I loved it so much. This is the only one that I know the name of the bakery - it came from Fábrica do Pastel Feijão, which I higly recommend!

Alfama

We spent some time after this just walking and sight seeing. We didn’t end up going into the castle as the line was too long but the area was still nice.

Rua Agusta Arch

We eventually also made our way to check out this beautiful arch that welcomes you into the city.

Parque Eduardo VII

This beautiful huge park was right by our hotel so we spent some time wandering it and relaxing on our last evening.

A Valenciana

For our last meal we decided to eat Peri-Peri chicken. Both of our tour guides mentioned it being a really typical meal that Portugese people eat (I’m told its extremely popular for takeout meals). Our Lisbon tour had a guide of the best ones to eat in Lisbon and we picked out A Valenciana from the list. You can smell the chickens cooking from outside. The menu has quite a few things on it but it seemed most people get the chicken. We also got fries and rice to eat alongside with it. It was a very simple but very delicious meal.

Portugal was overall a really lovely place. It is not for the faint of heart as you will walk up a thousand hills, but you will be rewarded with the most amazing pastries, food and views.