Misha Fitt

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The final leg of our Portugal trip as a bit unplanned but we decided on the road to stay the night in Lagos on the  South Coast. In hindsight we probably would have chosen somewhere else as it was very touristy and catering mostly to British people. It was off-season so nothing much was going on, however I imagine in the summer time it is quite the tourist attraction. I loved our hotel - the 70's Inn. It has awesomely decorated rooms and right in the centre of town. Perhaps the best part of this stop was visiting the Lagos Zoo! A good day out for families and all, I even got to see a new animal to cross off my list (Bobcat)* Our final day was nothing glamorous, we left Lagos to get to the outskirts of Faro to rest up before our early flight. A week flew by really quickly and I can't wait to go back to Portugal, a country which is now quite dear to my heart. *I have a list I made circa 2009 which lists a variety of species I have not yet seen in real life. Sort...

We left Gunnar behind in the mountains and made our way to the coast. First stop: Nazaré. Home of some of the biggest waves in the world (google it!). The ocean was pretty well behaved when we were there so we just had a look around and decided to carry on to Lisbon. If i had more time I would love to go back to Nazaré and stay for a while longer as it seems like a really lovely beachy town. Lisbon is busy. What you would expect from a capital city. There was much crying (me) and swearing (him) whilst trying to navigate our way through the streets with a sat nav that keeps trying to send us down one way streets. We stayed at the Lisboa Carmo Hotel and can recommend it. It’s in a great location, walking distance to everywhere and the staff are really friendly. We did the Tuk-Tuk tour again and got to take in much of what the city has to offer. We didn’t get to take a tram, which I would have liked but I will ear-mark that for next time! The Bairro Alto is a great ar...

After our enjoyable and gluttonous two nights in Porto we headed off to a region we know and love: Central Portugal. We have viewed properties in this area before and so we met up again with our ‘property your guide’ Gunnar, and saw many potential properties, ruins and land in and around the following towns: Pedrógão Grande, Pedrógão Pequeno, Vila Facaia & Figueiró dos Vinhos. We have been tempted before by a property in Figueiró dos Vinhos, mainly because of its proximity to a Churrasqueira (like a bbq meat restaurant). Churrasqueira Vitinho – Lopes is in my top 5 restaurants of all time. It is simple and cheap and very, very tasty. My husband (99% carnivore) doesn’t get past the mixed grill and fish-heads like me aren’t left out. I’ve had octopus rice, grilled trout and traditional Portuguese dish Bacalhau and each one was exquisite. Perhaps the best thing about Vitinhos is the wine. For around 2 Euros you can take home a 1.5L bottle of red wine and, even though it c...

My husband and I often feel like packing everything up and moving abroad. Portugal is one of the places we have considered and we recently made a 2nd visit to the country to scout potential properties – and visit a few of the cities as well. We began our week-long adventure in Porto. We stayed in an apartment for two nights which overlooked the Ribeira Douro. The river-front area is beautiful and boasts many cafes  I am an avid seafood eater and have indulged in Portuguese fish dishes before but was particularly excited to dig into some Porto sardines and I wasn’t disappointed!  Worse luck I cannot remember the name of the restaurant I had the sardines at but it is one of the ones on the upper part of the walkway besides the river. Gaia is the other side of the Douro and there is a rivalry between Porto and Gaia although we never found out why. We went on a tour of Porto in a Tuk-Tuk and the driver said Gaia was jealous of Porto and he wouldn’t even drive over t...