Where’s the best place to stay in Lisbon if you’re visiting for the first time? Chiado, Baixa, Principe Real, Bairro Alto, Avenida da Liberdade and Alfama are the best areas if you want to be based in the heart of the city and within walking distance of major sights, restaurants, transportRead More →
If the thought of a whole festival dedicated to chocolate appeals to you, here’s my advice for getting the most out of annual chocolate festival in Óbidos. Top tips for the Óbidos chocolate festival 1. There’s plenty to enjoy without buying a ticket If you’re on a tight budget and don’t wantRead More →
With its prime position on the mouth of the river Douro and its huddle of colourful buildings, Porto is extremely photogenic. Here are my tips for where to find the best views in Porto so you can go home with enviable holiday snaps. Note that my flexible self-guided walking tour of Porto sightsRead More →
I can’t recall how I first found out about Mafra’s Iberian Wolf Recovery Centre but it took me several years to finally get around to visiting. This is the only place in Portugal where you are likely to see these magnificent beasts in anything resembling the wild. What’s so specialRead More →
If you haven’t had the pleasure of tasting Portuguese wines yet, you’re in for a treat and some surprises. Wine tasting in Lisbon is a very popular pastime and there are several wineries near Lisbon so you don’t have to travel far to do a wine tour and tasting session in aRead More →
Exactly how far north or inland the Silver Coast, or Costa da Prata, of Portugal extends is debatable so for the purposes of this article, I’ll concentrate on the things to see and do around Caldas da Rainha, Òbidos, Alcobaça and Nazaré. As a beautiful, green, agriculturally rich area ofRead More →
The huge waves that draw surfers to the beaches around Peniche were not the reason I visited. One disastrous surfing lesson was enough to persuade me that it’s not the sport for me. I had other plans, the main one being a boat trip to the nature reserve on Berlenga Islands.Read More →
Travelling with kids is not something I have a great deal of experience of but I often get asked about what to do in Portugal with kids. To supplement my own knowledge, I asked several family travel bloggers to tell us about what their children enjoyed most during their tripRead More →
Over the years, I’ve written about some of my favourite traditional villages in Portugal, most of which are actually part of a network called Aldeias Históricas de Portugal. Under this official umbrella, there are 12 villages, all within the Centro region of Portugal. Most of them used to be borderRead More →
