Gotta be big on cod if you’re into Portuguese food.
Porto, on the other hand, has francesinha
Honestly, I liked Porto more than Lisbon. It’s a very underrated city.
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Liked Lisbon. Loved Porto. Porto is just so easy and small enough to get to know in just a couple days.
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Wow, that thing looks awesome!
Yeah, if I’m in Portugal, I’m smashing one of those.
It was.
I only had one on my trip, and it was good. It is reminiscent of poutine in it’s fries/gravy/cheesy combo, Canadians call it “Portugese poutine”, lol.
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We did several nights in Lisbon, then took the train to Porto for three nights. While in Porto, we burned one full day for a wine tour of the Douro valley that was very good. It turned out that only me and my wife booked the tour, so we did a full day tour with just the two of us and the guide. We were out for like 10 to 11 hours including the driving and the day went by super fast. That was a nice experience.
I enjoyed Lisbon and Porto about equally, but for different reasons. The dynamic was similar to other places where there is a larger central city that is more cosmopolitan and (frankly) somewhat more alike other large cities, and there’s a smaller city that is not as cosmopolitan but has arguably a more distinct culture. That was Lisbon/Porto for me. Lisbon is a pretty city, lots of nice parks, lots of nice shopping, etc., but you know I don’t need to go to Portugal to find a Burberry or a Michael Kors. Porto has a bit more “character” which means you have to work a bit harder to find the good stuff but the good stuff is a touch more authentic. Both cities have a prominent touristy area that can feel like a bit of a rip off.
One of the nicest things about Porto is the simple beauty of the city on the river, there are numerous places on both sides of the river where you can find a striking view of the city/riverfront.
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We had a wide range of experiences in the restaurants, but nothing really bad. The range was mediocre to excellent.
We splurged on a 5 star hotel in Lisbon so no surprise that the dinner we had at the hotel one night was excellent. But it also cost over 200 Euros for 2 people so it damned well should be good! One mark here in favor of Lisbon is that I have had similarly priced meals in New York or Toronto that were actually poor. If you regularly spend money in other big cities, Lisbon can feel like a bargain.
We also had two seafood meals that were really outstanding. One was in the beach town Cascais outside of Lisbon. We were lucky that we had a family member living out there so we visited and ate great seafood at a restaurant at the marina. It was very laid back but excellent fresh seafood - the kind of place where you go up to a counter of fresh fish and tell them which ones you want and how you would like them cooked. We got some great shrimps and clams and stuff like that. The other really nice seafood dinner we had was in Porto out on the beach front in a neighborhood called Foz do Douro. We had a really, really good mixed seafood “stew” called a cataplana that I had not heard of before.
Portuguese wine is also indeed excellent, I drank like maybe on average 3 glasses of wine per day over the trip and I had some absolute bangers.
Anyway, I definitely give thumbs up to Portugal. We mostly only hit the two biggest cities and they’re both nice places. We plan to go back and maybe spread around the experience a bit, mixing up urban adventures with more beach and/or countryside jaunts.
Yeah fresh seafood is a bright spot. Agree re Portuguese wine, some of the most underrated inexpensive wine in the world.
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I was thinking about the places I traveled in the past and thought to myself that for reasons unrelated to the quality of the place that there were place that didn’t get a fair shake when I visited.
It was either poor planning or bad luck that led to a series of events that took away from the experience. I opted for just a couple of days in Zagreb (most of one was spent getting there due to delays) and seizure-related injuries in Tallinn both led to experiences that were pretty dismal. A train strike in Portugal made day trips from Lisbon a bit challenging.
What experiences did you have that make you consider giving a place another chance someplace down the line?
Bangkok. Only gave it ~24 hours on a Cambodia/Thailand trip. We were tired, Ms. JordanIB was sick that day, it was brutally hot and humid, and given the aforementioned, I didn’t have the patience to navigate our day there, something I typically love doing. Would like to go back and spend some more time there.
I once did a whirlwind tour of a number of cities in Australia and New Zealand. Even my initial schedule was probably too aggressive, but it was made even worse when my luggage was lost on the Trans-Pacific flight. At least 50% of my already limited time in Sydney was spent either coordinating with the airline to try and track down my stuff or going shopping (not one of my favorite activities) in order to pick up enough stuff to get me through the trip in case my luggage was never found while trying not to buy too many things in case they were able to find the bags.
So, I was grumpy about the whole situation AND wasn’t able to do most of the activities I really wanted to do. Despite all that, I still got the sense that Sydney was a cool city, and I’m sure I’ll give it a second chance
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Currently visiting my hometown and having nightmares about what my life would have been like if I had never left. Can’t get away from here fast enough.
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At least you’d have Tucker Carlson to tell you that you the rest of the world is a socialist crime-ridden non-white hellhole, and you made the right decision.
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Exactly how I feel when I visit America.
New York is fine and all but everytime I visit rural PA, where I lived as a teenager, I am so glad that I left. Place looks exactly the way it did when I graduated 20 years ago.
I think most rural places in America look a lot worse than they did 20 years ago, it’s the same town but with all the small businesses and employers dead and a row of bland corporate Walmart type places at the edge of town.
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Someone needs to watch more Hallmark Christmas movies.
IRL, the typical “high school sweetheart still in my hometown” is likely to be an opioid addict who has had her kids taken away by child services. Romantic!
Looking at some recent photos of my old neighborhood (haven’t been there since the pandemic), it does appear that a few businesses that were there closed down. Given that there weren’t a lot there to begin with, it’s definitely a decline.
Other nearby areas are more touristy. So, they tend to be better maintained. Not necessarily improved but the status quo of 20 years ago is maintained (at least according to Google Street images).
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