Portugal, October 19. - 26. 2020

Our family's travel bucket list is very long (and Covid restrictions are not helping in shortening it). We have several trips already planned, just waiting for the right time for them to happen. Portugal trip was initially planned a couple of years ago and finally we managed to make it. We knew that Covid times meant more restrictions, but also less crowds and better prices and it was easily decided that spending a week of the October school holidays in Portugal was still a good idea. We chose to make it a round trip - flying out to Lisbon and flying back from Faro, so we could be able to see more. From Nice airport the only direct flights were to Lisbon, but we wanted to come back from Faro. Luckily there is a second big airport just a bit under two hours' drive from us - Marseille Provence. We have not been flying from Marseille a lot, just to Morocco on 2011, but I knew Ryanair was flying to many destinations from there. We also have not been flying with Ryanair since going to Morocco on 2011, but we guessed flights within Europe up to two hours would be fine. We also had to leave our car to Marseille airport - 36 euros for a week's parking was not bad at all. I guess if all the rules are followed, Ryanair is an OK airline to fly with - we took the family pack option with two large and two small suitcases, printed out our boarding passes and had no problems at all.

Lisbon and around

Our two hour flight from Marseille to Lisbon went well - the airplane was completely full, but being used to travelling during Covid times already, we were familiar with the drill - keeping the mask on during the flight and also wiping our tray tables and armrests with disinfectant wipes. Ryanair seats are probably a bit closer to each other than other airlines, but for a short flight there was no problem with it. We arrived at Lisbon late afternoon and took a Bolt cab for a reasonable 17 euros to our accommodation in the city center. 

We were staying in Lisbon Art Stay Apartments - an apartment hotel just a couple of steps from Santa Justa Elevator, in the very heart of Lisbon. Our two bedroom apartment was spacious, quaint and colourful - just about everything you could wish for when staying in an old building in the center.

 At the colourful lobby of the Lisbon Art Stay

 

 Our multicoloured apartment

After checking in and a quick bag drop to the apartment we went for a stroll in the center and to look for a place for dinner. We had a delicious meal of paella and bachalau in a small family restaurant just a few steps from our apartment building. Bachalau, meaning dried and salted cod in Portugese, is a traditional dish found many restaurants.

 

 

Lisbon by night

Next morning we woke up to the sound of rain. Although it was pouring we still went ahead with our plan to pick up our rental car and visit Nazaré. But first, we had to have some breakfast. Breakfast was included in the rental price of the apartment, so we headed to the bar/restaurant area next to reception. The bar area was decorated as the rest of the hotel - colourful and funky and in the evenings they had live music performes at the bar. Tripadvisor reviews stated that the breakfast was buffet-style, but it had obviously changed due to Covid restrictions. We could choose our breakfast from the menu - the choice was good and everything was very tasty, with several veggie options also available - their avocado on sourdough toast was so good.

We had reserved a rental car from Herz for just one day to drive to the famous surfing village of Nazaré, situated 120 km north of Lisbon. The drive lasted about an hour and a half and during the drive we realized that the weather was not going to be on our side that day - it was pouring rain and it did not seem to be clearing up anytime soon.

Nazaré has become a popular tourist attraction, advertising itself as a picturesque seaside village. It is also a very popular surfing destination because of the very high breaking waves that form due to the presence of the underwater Nazaré Canyon. Due to the height of the waves, numerous surfing records have been set at Nazaré.

We didn't have any luck with the huge waves either, but the beach was beautiful nevertheless. There was about 500 meters walk from the parking to the lighthouse and we were soaking wet when we arrived. There was a small fee of one euro to visit the lighthouse, a little surf museum and an exhibition explaining why the huge waves are forming in Nazaré.

We were all cold and soaked, so a nice warming fish soup in the village of Sao Martinho do Porto on our way back to Lisbon, in a lovely restaurant overlooking the beach was all we needed. The portions in this restaurant were huge, one soup for two people was more than enough.

The rain stopped in the evening when we had got back to Lisbon. It looked like a nice evening so we went out to discover the city. Lisbon is a very walkable city, although often the walking is done either up the hill or down the hill. There is also a good network of stairs and lifts, the most famous of them the Elevador de Santa Justa, that connects the lower streets of Baixa neighbourhood with the higher Largo do Carmo.

 

Views from the top platform of Santa Justa Lift

We had dinner in Lisbon Time Out Maket, located in the historic Mercado da Ribeira. It is an old market hall turned into food court with many stalls, some of them representing the top Michelin-starred chefs of Portugal, like Alexandre Silva or Henrique Sa Pessoa. We were definitely spoilt for choice and finally each of us took something from a different stall. It would probably be hard to get it wrong there, so obviously, everything we ate was delicious.

We woke up next morning seeing the sun peeking in between the window blinds. It was excellent news, as we had planned a day of sightseeing in the city. After having had breakfast at the hotel, we went to take the tram number 28 - the classic Lisbon tram journey, riding in the quaint yellow tram, as it rattles and screeches through the narrow streets of the city. Route number 28 uses the historic trams with the original 1930s features, as that particular route is completely unsuitable for modern trams, due to its tight turns, narrow streets and steep gradients.

 

Another thing we loved in Lisbon were the houses decorated with azulejo tiles in almost everywhere you looked. 

It is definitely important to wear comfy shoes in Lisbon - there is so much to see, lots of walking to do, every part of town is different and the views are great after every turn. Lisbon has a great vibe, it is a city we wish to return for sure.

Sao Bento Palace, the seat of Portugese Parliament

We did call it an early night as the next morning it was time to pick up our rental car to visit Evora in the central Portugal, before heading south towards the coast of Algarve.

  

Evora and the Southern coast of Portugal

Very likely due to the lack of clients caused by Covid restrictions the car rental prices in Portugal were more than reasonable. We had reserved a BMW 3 series from Sixt, but they gave us a little upgrade and we got a Mercedes C-class instead. We had decided to drop off the car at Faro Airport as this was where our departure flight was taking off. There was an extra fee of 60 euros for that service.

We set our GPS to the direction of Evora and said good bye to Lisbon. In order to get out of the city, we had to drive across Vaso da Gama Bridge. The Vasco da Gama Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge flanked by viaducts that spans the Tagus River in Lisbon. It is the longest bridge in the European Union, and the second longest in all of Europe with a total length of 12.3 kilometres. It was built to eliminate the need for traffic between the country's northern and southern regions to pass through the capital city.

 

Crossing Vasco da Gama Bridge

 

On the way of travelling south, we wanted to fit in a visit to Evora, an hour and a half long drive inland from Lisbon, even though it meant taking a little detour. Due to its well-preserved old town centre, still partially enclosed by medieval walls, and many monuments dating from various historical periods, including a Roman Temple, Evora is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Probably one of the best known monuments of Evora is the Capela dos Ossos - the Bone Chapel. The Chapel gets its name because the interior walls are covered and decorated with human skulls and bones. The Capela dos Ossos was built by Franciscan monks. An estimated 5,000 corpses were exhumed to decorate the walls of the chapel. The bones came from ordinary people who were buried in Evora's medieval cemeteries (source: Wikipedia).

Apart from the Bone Chapel, we also visited Evora Cathedral - the biggest Medieval cathedral in Portugal, that offers beautiful wievs to surrounding landscapes from its rooftop viewing platform. We also just walked around the narrow streets of the picturesque town center and had a nice lunch in one of the restaurants.

 

We had chosen the small seaside town of Praia da Luz as our base to stay in the Algarve region. It took two and a half hours to drive from Evora to Luz, where we had reserved an apartment in Baia da Luz apartment hotel. We were pleasantly surprised how spacious, clean and modern the apartment was - it had a large saloon with access to terrace, a separate large fully equipped kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms, one of which en suite, on the entrance level and another large bedroom with en suite bathroom and a sun terrace on upper level. Usually when we stay in the apartments we do not expect them to be cleaned during the stay, but here it was done every other day and the Rituals toiletries in the bathrooms added an extra nice touch. Our apartment was about 5 minutes' walk form the beach and the beachside promenade with cafes and restaurants and the apartment complex also had a heated swimming pool in the courtyard. We actually liked our apartment so much that we ended up having (takeaway) dinner every night on the terrace, instead of going out.

For our first day in the Southern Portugal, we went to visit the extreme southwestern point of continental Europe, Cabo de Sao Vicente (Cap St Vincent), near the village of Sagres. It is possible to walk around the Cap - the hiking trail is in excellent condition with a bar protecting from going to the edge of the steep cliffs with altitudes between 60 and 80 meters. The views are dramatic and absolutely stunning. The entrance to the cap is through a small fortress and lighthouse building that belongs to Portugese Navy.

Before going back to our apartment, we drove to the town of Lagos, only 10 minutes' from Luz, to stock up some groceries. No meals were included with the apartment rental, so it was nice having morning coffee and breakfast on our terrace. Luz, being a small town, only has a couple of little shops whereas nearby bigger town Lagos has large supermarkets with more choice, especially plant based milks etc. I always love visiting grocery stores in other countries and discovering the different food products there. Algarve has a big British community and a large amount of British tourists, so we noticed lots of British products being sold. We also went for a little stroll in Lagos - it was quite touristic town with a nice old town and beach.

In the afternoon the kids decided to check out the pool of the apartment complex as the weather was amazing for end of October. We also went for a walk along the beach promenade of Luz, finally deciding to climb the rock overlooking the beach and the town to admire the sunset (there is a hiking trail to get there).

Sunset over Praia da Luz

One of the most famous attractions of the Algarve coast is the Benagil Cave and the best way to visit the cave and also see the magnificent coastline of Algarve is by boat. We took a boat trip along the coastline, lasting two hours with a start and finish in the village of Carvoeiro. Carvoeiro itself is a small village and there is a hiking trail along the coast departing from the beach. As we had arrived early for the boat trip, we had more than an hour to spare, so we went to check it out. It seems like Algarve region has many well marked hiking trails in excellent condition - the Carvoeiro trail is definitely worth a visit.

The coastline tour was made in a small motor boat. Apart from our family, there were two other couples on the boat, so we were eight people altogether, plus the boat driver/guide. The tour consisted of a slow hour and a half ride along the coast, visiting several caves and then a fast half an hour ride back from the last cave to the starting point. The price of the tour was 25 euros per person. The coastline was very beautiful and we visited about ten different caves and a couple of small beaches and bays. It surely gives another aspect to the coast from the sea than seen from the land. Considering that it was the end of October, we were very lucky to have great weather. On the way back though, when the boat picked up speed, it felt pretty chilly.

When the boat trip ended, we decided to visit the nearby town Albufeira and have late lunch there. Albufeira looked a bit like a tourist hotspot that had seen better days - many of the bars were closed (probably due to Covid restrictions). It still had a lovely beach and quite a few restaurants to choose from.

The next day, the forecast had promised some wind blowing from the Atlantic ocean so we decided to go looking for some big waves at the open Atlantic coast. We took off towards Bordeira and saw a lot of surfers in camper vans along the beach, probably waiting for the waves. The coast is very wild there with lots of small beaches separated by rocky landscape. Again, there were walkways with viewing platforms on the cliffs, making it easily accessible for everyone.

It was our last day in Portugal - the next morning we were going to take the flight from Faro airport back to Marseille. We loved many things about Portugal - Lisbon, the city with great vibe, the easy going nature and friendliness of Portugese people, breathtaking dramatic landscapes, affordable prices... It felt good being able to realize a trip that had been on our bucket list for so long time, even despite the Covid restrictions. I am sure it was not our last visit to Portugal.