Portugal

We left on Wednesday night and got there Thursday evening around 5. We wanted to pick up a rental car in Lisbon airport and drop it off in Coimbra the next day, but because that was a holiday weekend, all rental car places other than airports were closed.

We decided we would uber and take the train. But first we wanted to explore Lisbon a bit. So we booked an uber, he took us to Belem tower and another place near it by the water. It was nice. Got to see the bridge which reminded me of golden gate. We walked around a bit then decided we would head to our hotel about 3 hours away. When we checked uber again, the price had jumped exponentially, so we decided we really needed to rent a car.

Thankfully on expedia or kayak, we were able to rent a car through klass wagen, a European car rental, and it was airport but off site, but so much cheaper than the airport rental places, so our uber driver took us there. We waited 2 hours because there were so many waiting and rented a car for 10 days.

We drove to Samuel, Soure, to our hotel, Palace Hotel-- we had booked a program that had chosen this hotel. It took us 2.5 hours to get there, so we arrived around 10:30 pm. Hotel is in middle of nowhere, literally farmland. You cant even walk anywhere because there's no sidewalk and a narrow 2 lane country road. They did not have enough staff. One person over night working for the entire full hotel of about 300 people. I had to beg for toilet paper and towels. Room wasn't cleaned unless we were there to ask. They call themselves 4 star, I'd give it a 2 star at most (although there were interior room doors). No in room iron (although you could borrow from front desk), poor wifi that barely worked, no hair conditioner, no tissues, one pillow, non working room safe (and when I brought this up with front desk, she said, oh the previous guy who stayed in your room must have locked it, come back on sunday and we'll open it. I told her no one in our program is able to open their safe, so its clearly a hotel wide issue. It was never fixed/opened for us.) Our room did have a little porch which was nice. Staff tried their best, but they were understaffed and overworked. At 8 pm most days, the cleaning staff was still cleaning rooms. Most of the staff didn't understand English.

The next day we drove to Porto; it took about 3 hours. We stopped off by a winery where they had a mini museum (close to Porto). I can't recall the name. Then we drove to Porto, took a ride on the cable car overlooking the water which was really beautiful. We had originally wanted to take a boat ride to see all the bridges, but we had no euro, only credit cards and they didn't accept it. After that we wandered around the shops by the waterfront and then drove 3 hours back to our hotel in Soure.

The next two days we rested and slept. The day after that we drove a few hours to Arrabida Natural Park, a gorgeous park we drove through where cliffs overlook the torquoise water and then we parked and took a hike along the waterfront on a path- it was maybe 15-20 minutes one way and the path stopped eventually and we walked back. It was so beautiful; the highlight of our trip. We drove the 2.5 hours back.

The next day we drove to Caiscais near Lisbon to visit the Pena Palace. If I remember correctly, we parked at the train station (cheap parking fee), and walked to a certain part and then we took a pedicab because you can't drive there by car. We bought tickets on the machines outside- you book it for a certain hour and then you have to be on line within that time frame. (You can also book tickers for the Pena Park, Moorish Castle, audiobooks, and shuttle at the same time.) The whole tour of the Palace takes less than an hour and it moves along at a steady pace even though there are a lot of people. It was nice. After that we walked through a section of the park, but it was cold and windy that day. Then we took the shuttle to the beginning and from there walked to the Moorish Castle which wasn't so far. The castle is unique- it's an outdoor exhibition where the castle walls remain but there's nothing inside and it's open to the elements. There are pretty views of the city if you walk up the steps to the top. The day we were there it was so windy, they recommended we avoid the highest steps/castle walk. It was so windy, we had to hold on tight to the sides when we were walking along the walls, and right after we left, they actually closed the entire castle to the public, early, because the winds made it very dangerous. Then we drove to Cabo da Rocas, the westernmost point of continental Europe. If I thought it was crazy windy in the castle, it was 10 times worse at Cabo da Rocas. We could barely get out of the car, barely walk to the cliff lookout by the ocean it was so terribly windy. (It reminded me of the time I went to Cliffs of Moher--also super windy when we went.) There were actually wind warnings on the weather app for parts of Portugal that week. But it was beautiful and worth going to. Then another 2.5-3 hour drive to our hotel.

Next morning, we decided to drive to the Algarve and stay in a hotel there for one night. We drove to Villamoura- it took at least 3.5- maybe 4 hours. It is a beautiful area. We stayed at the Hilton Villamoura which is a beautiful hotel. We booked Benagil cave tours online, but when we went they told us they had to cancel it because it was too windy and too dangerous to go. So we went back to the hotel and went to enjoy the spa. It was about 15 euro for 3 hours use of the place. There's a nice indoor pool, sauna, they had several unique shower experiences (one with a bucket high up that you fill with water and then pull on yourself, another area where you start off in one and there are light, music, and different amount of water that fall then you advance to the next connecting shower cubicle where different lights, different water pressures, different music go on, then they had swedish showers and other areas), then we headed back to our room. The room was beautiful compared to our other hotel and had all the amenities you would expect. But we did have an unexpected visiting critter which we were grossed out by, but the hotel made it up to us.

The next morning we woke up early, went to see if the Benagil cave tours would be running, but they didn't have any available. We drove to Southwest Alentejo and Vicenti Coast (I think it took 1.5-1.75 hours). We missed the cutoff and waze took us to the middle of nowhere. I stopped to ask two workers in this otherwise abandoned looking place and they said to head back out from where we came from and go around, to the park. Many people do not speak English so it is hard to communicate, but they understand some Spanish. We headed back out to where we came from and as soon as I came across more people I stopped to ask someone. They directed us to the town which is the gateway for the park, I think it's called Odeceixe. We parked and walked along the path by the cliffs along the water. Also stunningly beautiful walking on the cliffs by the water (almost as much as Arrabida.) Then after spending a bit of time we drove back to Soure.

The next two days we spent relaxing in the hotel. We were tired from all the driving. The night before we left we didn't sleep because we had to be leave our hotel at 3 am to get back to the car rental by 6 am to return our car. Luckily, there was no traffic (actually most of the time when we drove throughout the country, the traffic wasn't too bad, except near and within Lisbon.) We dropped off our car, they took us by shuttle to the airport, but since we go there early, they wouldn't let us check in four our flight till 2 hours before. We were exhausted and wanted to relax in the lounge but couldn't because the lounges were after security. Two hours later after dozing on some benches with our luggage, were finally able to check in and then headed for the lounge for a bit before we had to head to our flight.

The scenic coast of Portugal is beautiful. I'm grateful we got to see a beautiful country. Next time we need to check out more of the south...

Pena Palace is in Sintra...I see that Cascais is only 21 minutes away?

We too, experienced some wild wind...in our case it was in Lisbon.

When was this trip? Sounds like you covered a lot of ground in a short time.