Beginning of a Porto Tonico Summer

Spent a little less than a week in Portugal recently and enjoyed it very much.

We split the week between Lisbon and Porto and I’ll get into it more below, but in my opinion Porto > Lisbon.

It’s been a long time since I spent time in Europe during the summer and wow is it pleasant. The week was filled with seafood, pasteis de nata, and good cheap wine.

Maybe this impression was affected by two red-eye flights within 3 days, but Lisbon was just alright. There were some nice areas, but it also felt a little seedy?

• Alfama was a fun neighborhood. For an afternoon, we just walked around and followed the twisting and turning cobblestone streets. Around each corner were small beer garden-like areas with outdoor stalls selling drinks and bar snacks.
• The view was from Miradouro de Santa Luzia was beautiful, with the expanse of red clay roofs as far as the eye could see. A few musicians were playing guitar and singing which added to the peaceful ambiance.

• Belem was nice. Belem Tower was cool, but the line to get into Jeronimos Monastery was annoying. The timed tickets didn’t mean anything so we ended up waiting over an hour under the sun. The pasteis de nata we had at Pastéis de Belém were our favorite from the trip though!

We took a three-hour train from Lisbon to Porto which was pretty smooth sailing and a convenient way to hop cities. Porto, known for it’s port wine, was smaller than Lisbon but very cute and nice. I felt like we got to really know the city in our 2.5 days there.

• There were tons of churches in the city
• Palacio do Bolsa (palace of the city’s commerce association) was a cool little tour. The architecture inside was gorgeous
• Very much enjoyed spending a sunny afternoon across the river in Gaia sipping wine and drinks from a waterfront port lodge.

• My favorite spot was up on the hill at Jardim do Morro, where we spent our last sunset on the grass drinking a bottle of vinho verde out of paper cups we snagged from McDonald’s. There were some DJs spinning music and some bachelorette party groups, the vibes were simply immaculate.

We also discovered the perfect summer drink called a Porto Tonico, which is basically just port wine + tonic water + a little citrus and mint. Let the summer of Porto Tonicos begin!