I'm a Portu-gal

I need both hands to count the number of people in my extended circle who have been to Portugal in the past few years - and adored it. I wanted to go during my study abroad semester in Spain, but despite the proximity, I never made it. When I learned I'd be attending a work conference in Madrid last month, then, I was bound and determined to make it happen. I landed in Lisbon on a Thursday morning and for 4 1/2 days, fully embraced vacation mode in country #25. Solo, I might add. For the record, I, too, adored it. 

(I'll tell you everything - about Portugal, the conference, and my post-conference vacation in Spain - if you have about 5 hours; otherwise, the following photos were carefully selected to convey the story of my time in Portugal as concisely as I could.)

This is mostly how I'll remember Portugal. Should I just stop now, or keep going? 

I mastered public transportation (buses, trams, and the metro) in both Lisbon and Porto, starting with the ride from the Lisbon airport to my hotel. I'm pretty proud of the fact I only Ubered 2x.

My first outing was a quick walk to the city center in search of this gem: the world's oldest bookstore. There's a Guinness World Records plaque and everything.

Then: off (on the tram) to the Belém neighborhood, where I toured the Jerónimos Monastery (named for St. Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin). It's the primo example of Manueline architecture, a style devised by and named for King Manuel.

I had some time to kill before a walking tour I'd booked (the first of 8 I'd eventually do across 4 cities), so why not try Portugal's ubiquitous sweet treat, pastel de nata? It's a mini muffin-sized flaky pastry case filled with creamy, eggy custard, best topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon. My to-go one came with little packets of both. The bakery that originated them - Google's most reviewed eatery - is next to the monastery. Only four employees know the recipe, and much like those in the presidential line of succession, they're not allowed to be in the same place at the same time. 

Belém Tower, which I was going to go up in but opted for dinner anywhere out of the cold & wind instead. 

My tour guide gets all the credit for steering me in the direction of a typical meal that totally hit the spot at a place filled with locals, not tourists: a bifana (marinated sliced pork sandwich) + caldo verde (brothly, slightly creamy, soup with bits of dark, leafy greens). 

Ready for day 2 of exploring. All the sidewalks in Lisbon are B&W tile mosaics.

One of the first stops on walking tour #1 of 2 Friday was a cafe where some of Portugal's most beloved literary minds used to gather. Fernando Pessoa had multiple (70+!) personality disorder; the empty chair isn't a photo op, it's him talking to one of his alter egos.

Views from the top of the Santa Justa lift (yes, lift as in elevator - Lisbon is hilly like San Francisco) without paying 6 euro for a seconds-long ride? I'm in. 

King Sebastian, whose story is one of the contributing factors in the downfall of the Portuguese monarchy. He fled to North Africa before producing an heir and...no one knows. 

My tour guide told my group we'd probably never seen a cathedral like the Church of St. Dominic, and she was right. Look closely: it was destroyed by fire in 1959 and only partially restored. 

I bravely sampled a typical Portuguese snack between walking tours: codfish cakes. 

My Friday afternoon walking tour through the Alfama neighborhood, the only sector of Lisbon to survive a devastating (likely magnitude 8-9 if the Richter scale had existed at the time) 1755 earthquake, was quite possibly my favorite of the trip. 

My guide knocked on a neighbor's door so we could all sample his homemade ginjinha, or cherry liqueur. It was a little cough syrup-y if you ask me, but the man was charming; he told us he was 82 years old (41 in each leg!). 

A can't-miss Lisbon experience is listening to fado, a mournful style of music that originated as sailors' wives poured their emotions into song when their husbands took to the seas. 

Off to Porto on Saturday morning...

...across the double-decker Dom Luis I bridge to what's actually Gaia, another city entirely... 

...and straight to one of Porto's many port lodges. One hundred percent of the world's port wine is produced in the nearby Duoro River valley and aged in Gaia. Wanna hear my new party trick? I'll tell you if that port you're drinking is ruby or tawny ;)

My first Porto walking tour began near one of those cheesy signs that I'm not a sucker for at all...

At my guide's recommendation, I made a beeline for the city's most popular sunset-watching spot as soon as the tour ended. Correction: I made a beeline for gelato and THEN for the city's most popular sunset-watching spot (peep all the port lodges in Gaia by night - I went to Cálem, in the lower left foreground). 

Good morning, Porto!

I had 9:00 am reservations for the self-proclaimed world's most beautiful bookstore Sunday. Good thing, since THIS is what I showed up to. It wasn't a destination - in fact, it almost went bankrupt - until the early '90s, when J.K. Rowling lived a few blocks away. Theories about how she dreamed up the wizarding world of Harry Potter there abound, but she once tweeted she'd never actually set foot inside so...

I tried the lightened-up pancake version of Porto's specialty, the Francesinha (a white bread sandwich stacked with multiple meats - often ham, sausage, and sliced steak - blanketed with melty cheese, drowned in a tomato-based sauce, and topped with a fried egg) at a brunch spot my tour guide recommended before my 2nd Porto walking tour...with the same guide!

It was the warmest day yet. I even took off my vest for a stretch in the middle of the afternoon. 

One of our stops, Porto's local train station, brilliantly shows off a) some less common but definitely still very characteristic non-geometric tilework; and b) just how intrinsic the winemaking industry is to the region. 

The plan for a free hour or so before heading to the train station for my return to Lisbon changed multiple times. In the end, I went with yet another tour guide recommendation and toured the Bolsa Palace, Porto's working Chamber of Commerce HQ. No regrets. The 30 min. guided tour ends in the richly ornamented Arab Room. Despite its obvious references to Islamic architecture, the design has ZERO religious connotations and was selected purely to convey an air of affluence.

Waking up back in Lisbon Monday morning, I went for a spin on historic tram line 28 for no other reason than it's a Lisbon institution. I also didn't feel like I could rightly buy a spoon with a yellow tram car on top - which I did - unless I'd ridden one not built this millenium.

Last stop in Portugal: the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. The building, an architectural triumph, houses the Armenian oil magnate's private collection, one of the top 10 most impressive in the world. Marveling at beautiful objects in a tranquil, pristine space was a nice change of pace from traipsing around cities, and I very much regretted having to duck out of my brilliant guided tour early because I had a plane - to Madrid - to catch!

Until next time, blessings in Christ!