Our plans, decisions, and adventures
The interior section of the Alentejo region is often passed by, or maybe just touched on with a quick day trip or one-night visit to Évora from Lisbon. We identified several spots we wanted to see and decided on a five-night itinerary so we would have four full days to delve into the area. Our... Continue Reading →
Though we could have selected any number of towns as our base to explore the eastern Algarve, a local recommended Faro to us as a still-open-and-active winter location. We arrived in Faro by Flixbus from Seville, Spain, where we had been visiting with family. It was a bit of a walk with our suitcases into... Continue Reading →
We had been to Seville, Spain, twice before, and this short trip was all about family--family members who live in Seville (Ken's brother, his wife, and their daughter) and family members who would meet us in Seville (our son and grandson) for the first week of January 2023. In order to get there on New... Continue Reading →
Algarve is the region at the south end of Portugal. Its over 200 kilometres of coastline offer up sandy beaches, rocky cliffs, white hillside towns and historic fishing villages. With decent year-round weather (warmer and drier in winter than other parts of Portugal and not too hot even in the hottest month of August) and... Continue Reading →
So ... Much ... Rain.... At least on the day we arrived in Lisbon. We took a bus from Caldas da Rainha, where we had returned our rental car, and then took a metro to within 800m of our accommodation. Even if we had taken an Uber or Bolt ride, we would still have had... Continue Reading →
Once we decided to head back to Canada at the end of January and started researching airfares, we discovered a direct flight from Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel in the Azores to Toronto, Ontario. We would have preferred to fly directly to Vancouver, British Columbia, but the option of spending some time... Continue Reading →
The Silver Coast region of Portugal includes Coimbra and Aveiro, which I've covered in a previous post, but this post touches on quite a few smaller towns and areas in the region. We stayed for a week in a little village called Carregal, a few minutes away from Óbidos. Since we had a rental car... Continue Reading →
From the Douro Valley, we drove southwest to the Silver Coast region to visit Coimbra with stops in Aveiro and its beach area, Costa Nova, on the way. We were originally going to try to see Aveiro as a day trip from Porto, and then drive right from Douro Valley to Obidos, but the revised... Continue Reading →
The Douro Valley is Portugal's major vineyard and winemaking region and the oldest demarcated wine region in the world. The Douro River runs through the valley and the terraced hillsides create a feast for the eyes and a sense of wonder as you try to imagine maintaining and harvesting the plantings on what look like... Continue Reading →
Our first port o' call on this Portugal trip was Porto, a short flight from Amsterdam, where we had been visiting with family. Porto is in the northern part of Portugal and is known to be cool and rainy in the fall and winter (we arrived near the end of November). The hilly, cobblestoned streets... Continue Reading →
An extended visit to Portugal has been in our plans for some time, and finally the time is now. We had been in Europe for three months just three months earlier and were lucky enough to make a return trip to spend another three months here (three months is significant as this is our current... Continue Reading →
Just left: Port Townsend, Washington, USA
Now: Birch Bay, Washington, USA
Up next: Maple Bay, British Columbia, Canada
Life: Phase Next 