Trip Update: Oct-Nov 2022 Part 2 Portugal

Colorful tiles

We needed to fly from Dubrovnik to Porto, Portugal. Of course, there were no direct flights and we wanted to avoid long layovers. We picked a cheap flight on Transavia Airlines. The first leg went to Orly, France. There we would collect our bags and check back in for our flight to Porto. Sounds simple, right? From the time we landed at ORY until we got to our next gate took 2 hours! ORY was a disorganized mess and security was just ridiculous.  The leg room on Transavia flights was the shortest I have ever experienced. When I win the $2B Powerball, I’m going to buy my own plane!

We arrived in Porto and realized our two weeks of perfect weather had come to an end. While no days were a complete rain out, you didn’t dare go out with a rain coat. We definitely had to switch gears as we were now responsible for all of our own arrangements. Being on a tour was certainly more relaxing. We found Uber to be the cheapest and most efficient way to get around the cities in Portugal. For some reason Portugal’s Uber is about half of the cost compared to Uber in the US and gas is $8/gal there! It also helped that the dollar was worth slightly more than the Euro. We stayed in AirBNBs in Porto and Lisbon; hotels in other cities and country houses elsewhere.

Imperial McDonalds

We toured Porto for two days. We stopped at their Imperial McDonalds when we needed a bathroom break. It’s like no other McDonalds that you will ever see, complete with chandeliers. One of the rooms at the Stock Exchange was so ornate, I thought I was in St Petersburg.                          

Church of Karma

 

Must be a politician

Lighthouse at Foz do Douro

Stock Exchange

Church or Halloween decoration?

They told the builder they wanted a cornerstone

Pat at Gust Waterfall in NP

We rented a car for a week as we left Porto and headed for Peneda-Geres National Park, the only NP in Portugal. The rains were worse as we approached the mountainous interior of northern Portugal. The only advantage to the rain was the waterfalls and rainbows. Some of the side roads were so tight that the car’s collision alert alarms kept going off. It didn’t help that Google Maps sent us to the wrong location. Sometime the fog was too dense to drive. After a few days of frustration, we gave up and headed to the Duro Valley.

Nice tile work

Double Vision

Temple of Diana

Despite all the hype about the beautiful Duro Valley, we were not impressed. Our lodging there was quite disappointing, so we left the area and headed to Coimbra. One day was enough to see the sights in this preserved medieval old town with a historic university. We drove to Tomar and walked through the gardens up to the castle walls. We tried to storm the wall but were unsuccessful. Next, we unsuccessfully tried to enter through an underground aqueduct passage. We finally gave up and hiked back to town and took the tourist entrance to The Castle of the Knight Templar. The next stop was Evora, which was happily outside the rainy area. This is a walled Roman town with the ancient Roman Temple of Diana and many other historical structures. We drove to a spot outside town where we found Almendres Cromlech, a Stonehenge type rock circle, 2000 yrs. older than Stonehenge plus we visited other megalithic monuments nearby.

Megalithic Monument

Belem Tower

Not being accustomed to dry sunny weather we headed to Lisbon. We returned the rental car at the airport and used Uber to get in and around town. For the first day and a half, we toured around the old city of Lisbon which included the Castle of St George, the neighborhoods of Alfama and Baixa and the Tile Museum. The next day we went to the Belem Tower and it started to rain when we got there -by the time we left we were in a thunderstorm. Even with a rain jacket and umbrella we got pretty wet from the blowing rain and flooded streets and walkways. It was 1.5 mile walk to The Monastery of Jeronimos, but first we had to wait in line for half an hour to get in. The main attraction here was the church, but it was closed for the funeral service of some local big shot. So, it wasn’t worth the effort. When we were through at the Monastery the rain was over, so we started walking back to our AirBNB.

Monument to the Discoveries

Pena Palace

For our last day in Portugal and because our 40^th Anniversary was in a few days, I had set up a private tour of Sintra. There is a lot to see in the area, but the sights are somewhat scattered and difficult to do with public transportation. So, the morning that we were set to go, we find out with tour driver was sick and the tour was cancelled. This left us scrambling to figure out what we were going to do and how to do it. We took Uber to Pena Palace and grounds, then we walked down a steep hill and up another one to tour the medieval Moorish Castle. Both are World Heritage Sites. Afterwards we walked down to the old town of Sintra.  From here we took an Uber back. I guess we did okay considering our lack of planning!

Fancy window

Castle of the Moors

Jack in the Pulpit

The next day we flew to Boston.