Hillary's Birthday Getaway

Hillary can no longer say she's in her 30. To celebrate her birthday, we decided to get out of town and explore the Alentejo coast. We have visited the interior Alentejo region several times, but this was our first time to drive down the 100 miles or so of coast south of Lisbon.

We started by going to our new favorite beach, Comporta, an hour and a half from Lisbon. It had beautiful turquoise water and soft sand. Although there were many people taking advantage of the great day and Monday holiday, the beach was so long that we walked a little further and had plenty of space.

Because we're going to Italy next weekend, we were trying to do this on the cheap. We borrowed a tent from friends and planned to find a campsite. We stopped at the first campground south of Comporta, but it was completely full. We called a another one an hour further south and although the tent sites were full, they had an available "teepee" that we could rent for the night. It was more triangle-shaped shed than teepee, but it did the trick.

The next day, the teepee wasn't available, but we were able to pitch our tent. The campground was really interesting because lots of Portuguese go there and spend weeks. They set up elaborate sites with TVs, refrigerators, floors and potted plants. Our campsite wasn't so elaborate.

After spending our day at another beautiful beach, Zambujeira do Mar (photo above), we went back to Milfontes where we had camped and relied on our local food review book to pick one of the best restaurants we've been to in the region to celebrate Hillary's birthday. We had a great meal and Hillary's sister, Brooke, reached us by cell phone to say happy birthday right before we sat down. The next day, we made our way back to Lisbon via another stop at Comporta beach. It wasn't the fanciest birthday vacation, but it was great.

Jakarta friends reunion

I might be a little behind on our blog - but that's only because we've been so busy. In June, we had three different friends that we worked with in Jakarta come visit us in Lisbon. Hunter is now in Helsinki, Finland; Kira is in Islamabad, Pakistan; and Joel is in Washington, DC. (DC doesn't sound quite as exotic as the other two, huh?) I thought it was amazing that the three of them could get their work schedules, vacation time and flights to sync so they could come visit together. They were here for about nine days, and we had so much fun! I think the best part is that while they did a lot of sightseeing and day trips, they still had time to relax and enjoy their vacation - something that's not always easy to do in a European capital. Plus they got to hang out with our group of friends here a few times and that was fun for everyone. The above picture is from the requisite visit to St. George's Castle, overlooking Lisbon. I never get tired of the view from that place!

Here are some more pictures...

Group shot on the castle walls of Obidos. We drove about an hour north of Lisbon to visit this picturesque walled city. We had gone last year for the annual "Chocolate Festival", but this trip was nice because the city wasn't nearly as crowded.

Obidos is home to "ginginja", a cherry liqueur that was first made in the small town. One of the ways it is served is in a chocolate tasting cup, which you eat after you've tasted the liquor - sort of like a chocolate-covered cherry. Our friend Joel thought it was the best thing in the world. John got a nice shot of the drinks being poured into the chocolate cups...

Here we are enjoying a home-cooked meal that Hunter made us

You may remember our post from a year ago here: We were excited for another St. Anthony's festival, and we were hoping that it would live up to last year's. It was nice that our friends were visiting during the festival, especially given the fact that we got a four-day weekend due to the Portuguese holidays surrounding it! During St. Anthony's, everyone pulls tables out into the streets to eat. While some may be the tables from people's kitchens, there are plenty of restaurants which have tables out in the streets as well. We had to wait a bit to nab a table big enough for all of us, but we did succeed!

At one point our group (of about 15 people!) stopped to take a photo. We were supposed to be imitating the mural on the wall behind us - although some people did a better job than others. :)

By far the most crowded area was the street along which runs a funicular called the "Bica Elevador". Thankfully it wasn't running that night, because I can't imagine the funicular would even have been able to move a few inches much less the 245 meters to the top through the crazy crowd of people. Even though it was slow-going, they were selling beers in every other doorway, so no one seemed too worried about moving very fast!

At one point the crowd parted to allow this band to get through - I love that!

The best group shot of the night

Thanks for visiting guys, and come back any time!

To the beach!

Portugal has more than 1,114 miles of coastline. Needless to say, but I'll write it regardless - Portugal has a fair number of beaches. Luckily, some of those beaches are within a 20 minute drive of our apartment. We visited amazing beaches in Southeast Asia, but we have never lived in a city with a strong beach culture. When the weather is warm, Lisbon goes to the beach.

One of our most favorite beaches is not the most accessible. It's about 45 minutes from Lisbon near the westernmost point of continental Europe and down a steep trail that drops more than 500 feet from the "parking lot." But it's beautiful.

Hiking back up

Fortunately, there are beaches that are a lot easier to get to all around Lisbon. We often go to the beaches just up the coast from Lisbon, which are always crowded on the weekend and make for great people watching. We also like the beaches on the other side of the Tagus river, which seem to have never-ending stretches of sand.

The beaches that Portugal is most known for are in Portugal's southernmost region, the Algarve. We've made several trips there already and will be going back at least once more with Hillary's family in a couple weeks.

But one of the best things about the beach is having a cold beer in one of the many restaurants to take a break from the sun.

Beaches have become such a part of our life here that it's hard to imagine not having them nearby. We'll be looking for our next post in the coming months, and I certainly hope there are some options with good beaches.

Mom and Dad - What are you doing in Portugal?

My mom and dad recenly visited us in Portugal and found it easier to manage than Indonesia. They spent a few days in Lisbon adjusting to the time change and seeing some of the sights here before we took them on the road.

We started our journey north in a tiny village half an hour south of Coimbra called Cotas. We spent two nights at Villa Pedra, a beatiful place set on a hillside. The owner is the architect of the few houses to rent, and he also sourced every furnishing and decoration in them. It was a truly unique place. 

We spent an afternoon wandering the medieval streets of Coimbra, home to one of Europe's oldest universities founded in 1290. We also took a tour of the nearby ruins of Conimbriga, which date as far back as the 9th century BC. The city was one of the largest Roman cities in Portugal from 139 BC until its fall to the invading Germanic Suebi in 468 or 469. It is a very interesting archaelogical site because you are allowed to wander amongst the ruins.

The ruins are made even more interesting and unique because the city was dissected by a giant wall thrown up in haste in the 3rd century, which left many of the city's largest homes unprotected from invaders.

From Conimbriga, we drove north and saw some great views along the way. 

After arriving in the heart of Portugal's most famous wine country, the Douro River Valley, we spent two nights at Quinta do Vallado, an old wine estate that was recently converted into a small hotel. It was set on one of the Douro's steep hillsides amongst Quinta do Vallado's vineyard. We had read about the place in a New York Times article recommending travel to northern Portugal. We certainly would echo their recommendation. It's a beautiful part of the country with great food and fantastic wine.

Aqueduct

We recently got to go on a tour of Lisbon's historic aqueduct. This aqueduct was built in the 1700's to bring in water from a neighboring town. Lisbon doesn't get a lot of rain, and because the Tagus river joins the sea, the city used to suffer a lack of drinking water. Part of the aqueduct spans a valley, and forms an impressive series of arches and was an amazing feat of engineering when it was finished. Here is a picture showing the high arches.


Normally this part of the aqueduct is closed to the public, but we got to go on a special tour and walk along the outside edge.


There was a serial killer in the 1800's who killed more than 60 people by grabbing unsuspecting pedestrians and throwing them over the edge of the aqueduct, far down into the valley below! I know I wouldn't want to walk across there at night...

Another view with some clouds rolling in


Here is a view inside the tunnel where the water used to flow


A nice view of the bridge. You can also see the statue of Jesus way in the background



Looking back to see where we started

The tour ended in the huge reservoir where they used to store the water. It holds 5500 cubic meters of water, even though the water is no longer used by residents




We also go to go up on the roof of the reservoir, where we had more great views of the city. This is one of my favorites we took; to me it looks like a postcard. Lisbon really is an absolutely beautiful city.

Good advertising

Happy Portuguese Freedom Day

On April 25, 1974, a left-leaning group of military officers began the Carnation Revolution, which led to the downfall of Portugal's dictatorship. We celebrated the holiday by going to the beach.

We recently went on a trip out to the Alentejo, which is the wine country east of Lisbon - probably our favorite area of Portugal. We had bought a Groupon, which was good for 2 nights at a hotel, breakfast both days, and a dinner at the hotel's restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised at how nice the hotel (Solar Das Mascarenhas) was, and the location was great. It was in Vila Viçosa, which is a cute town home to a Ducal Palace and of course, a cool old castle.

We did an improptu photo shoot outside the palace and got a few decent shots:




The castle was neat to see; here is a photo we took while walking on top of the rampart walls.


View from the castle:


The huge moat surrounding the castle warranted a picture:


John on the drawbridge:


One more picture we got - this one looks out from inside the castle over the town at night


We've mentioned before how much we love the food in the Alentejo. We weren't expecting too much out of the dinner that was included, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. We got to order whatever we wanted from the menu, and everything we had was great. Check out the picture of the filet mignon I had - you can barely see it under all the cream sauce!


One of the things we wanted to do while we were there was go on a long bike ride. We brought our gear with us and on Saturday morning we set off. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we had fun getting lost between picturesque towns as we rode through the countryside.

Here is what some of the roads looked like - it was as if we had our own private biking trails


Said hi to these guys:


And their friends:


That area of the Alentejo is known for its marble, and we passed quite a few quarries on our bike ride. The towns there use a ton of marble on their streets, doorsteps, everywhere. Here is the town fountain, in which a couple of dogs were playing around.


We took the slow roads on the way back to Lisbon, which made for a beautiful drive. I'm sure we'll do another bike trip soon!