Why Portugal
Portugal is much harder to get to from Singapore than it should be – there are no direct flights to Portugal from Singapore. Even flights to Spain, its much larger neighbor on the Iberian Peninsula, are sporadic at best. And even if you were to somehow get to Spain, train connectivity (easily the most convenient way to travel within Europe) between Spain and Portugal is shockingly poor.
Portugal was on our list for 3 main reasons:
- It was the only Western European country that we had not been to
- When traveling through Chile’s Atacama desert in 2013 (as part of a 4 week trip in LatAm), we met an amazing couple who could not stop telling us how amazing Portugal was and that we should definitely go there sometime
- Phil Rosenthal. The creator of Everybody Loves Raymond now hosts ‘Somebody Feed Phil’ on Netflix and his episode on the Portuguese capital, Lisbon (locally, “Lisboa”) was one of our favorites.
Since it was so hard to get to and it was unlikely that we would be able to make it back in a hurry, we ended up spending 10 nights in Portugal (we had planned for 9, but extended our stay along the way). Our approach was pretty similar to the one we followed in Chile in 2013 (another hard place to get to from Singapore) where over the course of 12 days we covered all the major regions of the country.
Getting to Portugal
Our trip to Portugal would start in Lisbon. But to get there, we had to endure what was easily the worst day of our trip up till this point. With an aim to keep costs under some control, we decided to take a one stop flight from Santorini with a 4 hour layover in Athens (the alternatives were – 1. spend a night in Athens, but hotels were so expensive that it did not make sense or 2. stop over for only 1 hour in Athens, but pay twice the cost). Once again, we flew on Aegean Air. The leg from Santorini to Athens was short and uneventful (time in the air was only about 40 minutes). The only complaint was about the quality of Santorini airport – for such a popular tourist destination, you would think that they could have done a few more upgrades. It seemed like one of those ‘secondary’ airports that Ryanair would willingly fly you out of. We managed to kill 4 hours in the Athens airport easier than we had expected. Combination of holding down a seat in a coffee shop + buying books + changing Nadiya (the baby room in Athens airport was pretty good!) helped pass the time as we waited to board our 4hr flight to Lisbon. Regular readers of the blog will know that we prefer the front row seats on airplanes and we were able to secure those on this flight as well. The only catch though was the fact that unlike on the Krakow – Athens leg, this time the front row in economy was NOT the first row on the plane. There were 2 rows of ‘business’ class ahead of us (essentially economy style seats separated by a curtain). Additionally, the flight was packed (Sunday evening business travelers from Athens to Lisbon we guessed) which meant that for once we had someone sitting next to us. In this cramped environment and with 7 hours of travel already behind us, we set off. Through the flight, Nadiya was restless and the usual soothing mechanisms we had (of feeding and rocking her etc.) seemed to be less effective. At the scheduled 4 hour mark, the pilot announced that we would have delays of another 30 minutes due to air traffic. It was around this point that Nadiya had one of her first meltdowns on a plane. It only lasted about 10-12 minutes, but in a crowded plane that can seem an eternity. We felt helpless and not in control for the first time on this trip (more on the impact of this later in this post). To add insult to injury, Ajay ended up leaving his phone in the taxi while on our way to the hotel in Lisbon (he still hopes to find it…some day ;))
3 nights at Martinhal Lisbon Chiado Family Suites
We checked in to Martinhal Lisbon Chiado Family Suites for our 3 night stay in Lisbon. Marketed as the world’s first ‘city centre family hotel’ the main draws for us were – 1. it had a room available (by this stage of the trip, we had resorted to booking transfers/stay etc. just one day before arrival); 2. it was in the center of the city (yay!); 3. each room had a washer-dryer! Readers of this blog might remember how we had complimented Topolowa Residences, Krakow for providing us with a bathtub for Nadiya in Poland. Turns out, that is par for the course in Western Europe. Not only did we get a bathtub, but also a separate bath towel for Nadiya. The rooms themselves could have been a bit bigger, but mostly served our purpose. The challenges though were the lack of a proper in-house restaurant and the breakfast which was below average. The location was perfect though – right in the middle of where we wanted to be in Lisbon.
Dealing with the ‘7 Hills’ of Lisbon
Our time in Lisbon was spent trying to recreate Phil’s culinary journey around the city. Now we did have some constraints – the main one being that Nadiya needed to be in bed by around 7PM, so that ruled out any dinners. A secondary constraint was the fact that Lisbon is a hilly city. Upon checking into the hotel, our concierge informed us ‘Lisbon is a city of 7 hills. A road going down always leads to a road going up’. Furthermore, with bath and play time with Nadiya scheduled for the morning, we essentially had 5-6 hours a day to see the city. But hey – we are nothing if not ambitious and we aimed to cover about half the things that Phil did during his stay in the city. It was in Lisbon that we first realized some of the challenges with our Yoyo Babyzen + stroller. While it is great for travel (and we’ve seen so many young parents like us in various parts of the world with this stroller), it really struggles when dealing with the cobble stone streets of old school Europe. Couple that with the steep slopes of Lisbon and the stroller is rendered pretty much useless. What this meant was that one of us had to carry Nadiya on us (with the Ergobaby carrier) in addition to handling the steep slopes of Lisbon’s streets!
Exploring Lisbon’s Gastronomy
‘Don’t forget the Portuguese Tarts (Pastel De Nata). Those were unreal’ was the guidance we received from Abhiram. Phil seemed to agree and his first stop (like ours) was in Manteigeria. We had tried these Egg Custard Tarts in Macau (a former Portuguese colony), but the real deal was a whole level apart. Since it was only a 5 minute walk away from the hotel, this become our staple breakfast every morning in Lisbon. The Timeout Market became another staple for us. To those familiar with Singapore’s hawker centers, Timeout Lisbon is like a hawker center on steroids. Pop-up stalls from Lisbon’s finest eateries all under one roof (including some Michelin starred chefs) -it’s a foodies delight! The food here was so good that we returned thrice (a particular favorite for us was the squid ink risotto – exquisite!). Taberna Rua Da Flores was recommended to us by a friend. It happened to be on the same road as our hotel and served up our second best meal in Lisbon. The best meal though, had to be at Ramiro’s. Famous for being the ‘best seafood restaurant’ in Lisbon (even by locals – the Uber driver that took us there could not stop raving about it), it did not disappoint. Bloggers have described it to resemble a Chinese restaurant with live seafood tanks, efficient (if not always polite) service and the ubiquitous white table cloths. The food though, was to die for. So good that Ajay ordered seconds of a few dishes (much to the surprise of our server). Tip – go there during the odd hours (3-6PM; the wait isn’t as long and there are other babies too so its much easier envirnoment).
Walking around Lisbon
In the times that we were not stuffing out faces, we spent walking around the city and building a massive appetite. For once, we did not even bother to carry a map and just walked along whatever road caught our fancy. The city is filled with colorful houses, majestic viewpoints (from the hills) and an impressive riverfront overlooking a massive river . There are narrow streets that seem to lead nowhere that still miraculously have trams running through them (tram 28!). And not to forget the impossibly steep slopes (have we mentioned this already?!). There were more than one instance where we had to push the person carrying Nadiya up the slopes to make sure that they did not go tumbling down. What we really liked about Lisbon was the fact that the city had been able to preserve all of its history and culture. It was not just a beautiful city (ala Venice or Prague), but a living breathing Western European capital city. Lisbon is definitely our favorite Western European city (and possibly second only to St. Petersburg in all of Europe).
Onwards to Porto
Our 3 days in Lisbon went by fairly quickly and it was soon time for us to head north to the city of Porto. Many people that we had spoken to (even the folks we met in Chile) waxed eloquently about the city and how Lisbon pales in comparison. A 3 hour ‘Alfa Perpendicular’ train ride took us to Porto. Our strategy on this ride was to book first class tickets (again!) mostly so that we could get some space. The trains had airplane style seating, but what made it easier was that whenever Nadiya needed to go to sleep we could put her in the carrier and walk in the galleys or to the food coach next door. The stations in Portugal are much more accessible than the ones in Poland or Ukraine so we had little trouble maneuvering our luggage in and out of the stations.
3 nights at Torel Avantgarde, Porto
Our 3 nights in Porto were spent at the Torel Avantgarde Hotel. Located a 10 minute walk away from the historic center (this was a forced departure from our usual strategy of staying in the city center as there was limited availability by the time we booked), this boutique hotel has a slightly artsy feel about it. Each room is unique and themed on a famous personality. We were given the Albert Einstein Suite which gave Ajay a bit of a thrill as he shares his birthday with the legendary physicist. From Nadiya’s perspective, this hotel was a class apart as it not only provided her with a bathtub, crib and towel, but also baby toiletries! The room was quite large and gave us enough space to walk around. The breakfast at the hotel was satisfactory (the hot chocolate though was special and we had multiple cups on more than one morning!). Generally a satisfactory hotel that served our purpose.
Decisions, decisions, decisions!
Portugal in general and Porto in particular was meant to be an inflection point on our trip. It was here that we would have to take the final call on what the second half of our trip would look like. Would we dare to cross the Atlantic and literally go around the world (in keeping with our starting premise of going west of north). Or would this be the point at which we would turn back. Given the way we had planned this trip, both options were on the table till the very end. However, at this point, we had 2 things to consider: 1. we had still not fully gotten over the stress of the last time we were on a plane with Nadiya (from Santorini to Lisbon via Athens) and 2. we did not want to reach a point where we were so exhausted that we were ‘phoning it in’. Nonetheless we invested an entire day mapping out a route to Singapore going west from Portugal (Porto – NYC – SFO – Honolulu – Apia – Nadi – Melbourne – Singapore). We even managed to convince ourselves that we could somehow get through these long flights (once we crossed the Atlantic, we would be left with little choice but to complete the whole journey). But in the end, it came down the economics of the whole journey. Just the flights alone would set us back by almost half of what we had spent so far (a lot of these routes are Star Alliance ones, but there was no availability for miles redemption on the range of dates we needed to make this happen). We finally decided that it was time to head East/South for the remainder of our journey.
Exploring Porto
With all of this going on, we probably did not do enough justice to Porto. It did seem like a nice city (hilly, but not to the same extent as Lisbon). There Douro river did give the city some charm (accentuated by the Port cellars on the river banks). We did not, however, have the same level of instant attraction that we did with Lisbon. It could have been because we were tired on this leg (Nadiya had started to wake up more frequently at nights) or the fact that there were so many other things we were trying to do while in Porto or the fact that we violated our cardinal rule of not staying in the city center – the overarching fact was that we did not do Porto the justice it deserved and may need to come back some day to see if the city actually did justify all the hype.
Getting to Algarve
Our third and final stop in Portugal was down south to Algarve. One of the misconceptions that we had was that Algarve was a place (i.e. city or town) as opposed to what it actually was (a region encompassing the Southern coast of Portugal, stretching all the way to the Spanish border). Our first challenge was to find a place to stay. The Algarve consists of a series of beach side towns spread across a distance of over 100+ KM, each town looking more beautiful than the other. What finally helped narrow down our choices was looking at the train lines – the IC (intercity) trains only go to Albufeira and Faro direct from Lisbon (we could go further west to Lagos, but that would mean a change to a slower Regional Train). We discovered that there was an Anantara property (we’ve stayed in their properties thrice now and have generally had good experiences) in the town of Villamoura, a 15 minute drive from Albufeira. It was also more centrally located within the Algarve (Faro was too far west). Getting to Albufeira though required us to travel a little over 6 hours by train (we needed to switch in Lisbon). The journey was really easy, further confirming our preference for trains as our default mode of travel (even if it meant a slightly longer transit time).’The Algarve is beautiful, but I don’t consider it to be real Portugal’ was what one of the locals had told us in Lisbon. When we got to Algarve, we understood what he meant. Towns like Albufeira and Villamoura seemed to be custom built resort towns catering to the summer tourist seeking some sun and sand. There are massive beach side resorts and you could be forgiven for thinking you are in Cancun but for the stunning natural beauty that the Algarve has to offer.
Three Four Nights at Anantara Vilamoura Algarve Resort
We checked into Anantara’s Vilamoura Resort for what was supposed to be a 3 night stay. It was a massive property, the food was excellent (we had our first taste of authentic piri piri chicken – not the Nando’s knock-off), the service was friendly and the rooms were big and spacious. It was also one of our cheapest rooms of the trip. Conscious that we had not really done Porto justice, we wanted to take it easy in the Algarve so we extended our stay an additional night. Around this point, Nadiya was also showing the first signs of a sleep regression and was waking up every 2 hours at night. Staying in one place for 4 nights we felt would give her some consistency and help with her routines (so far, it seems to be working but babies can be so unpredictable :)). It did mean that we did not explore as much of the Algarve as we normally would have, but our primary responsibility on this trip was as caregivers to Nadiya so we wanted to make sure that we lived up to our expectations.
Exploring Algarve
We decided to drive around the Algarve, so we hired a car (rental cars in Portugal are expensive – easily the most expensive of our trip so far). Our first stop was to Sagres, the western most part of the Algarve (also supposed to be the Western most part of Europe). This is where we first saw the impossibly steep cliffs and blue/green waters that make the Algarve so famous. It reminded us of the Great Ocean Road in Australia (‘but still standing’ as Abhiram would remind us). As we drove back east to Lagos and Carvoeiro, we were treated to more stunning cliffs, walking paths and hidden beaches that some adventurous folks had managed to take advantage of. It was amongst the most beautiful places we had ever seen. Due to it being low season, the roads were mostly empty and most of the places we went to were relatively empty as well (its always more enjoyable to see things when you don’t have to jostle for space with massive crowds.
Final thoughts
Overall, we are glad we finally made it to Portugal. It was everything we imagined and just a bit more. It has history, culture, natural beauty, good food and is still surprisingly affordable. Our only regret was that we could have spent a bit more time exploring Lisbon though it might be a few years before we make this trip again.
Next up…
The next stop of the We2ours1 Tour would be Spain, a country that we visited back in 2012 when our understanding of Spanish food (and language to some extent) is not what it is right now. More on this later!
Visa
Portugal, like Greece and Poland, is a part of the Schengen region. So our Schengen visas served the purpose for Portugal as well.
We2ours1 Tour Overall Stats
Total # of Countries: 7 (Portugal, Greece, Poland, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, UAE, Oman)
Total air miles: 8,690 (6 flights)
Total distance driven: 2,403 KM (driving in Sri Lanka, UAE, Oman, Greece and Portugal)
Total train distance: 1,666 KM (6 trains)
Total ferry distance: 136 nautical miles (2 ferries)
Total nights: 43
Nadiya’s age at the end of this leg: 15 weeks, 4 days
Around the world with a baby 