mmm My Favorite After 6 Months

Our little beach cove in Lisbon.
Photo by Scott 6/2020

mmm, My Favorite after 6 Months of Travel

After six months of travel, June through November, which was our favorite city or town?  Probably our most asked question.  But wow, who’d have thought all we’ve lived through, know now, back in early 2020, as in January and February 2020.  Joanie and I were planning our summer in Portugal back in January 2020, after having spent a month in Portugal, mid-December through Christmas and New Years to mid-January.  In fact, this time last year we were getting ready to visit Portugal for the month.

Lisbon, Portugal, December 2019,

Joanie enjoying Christmas festivities.

But yes, mid-January, coming back to Scottsdale, we made the decision that we were going to summer in Portugal, and maybe extend that through October.  So, May or June to November.  There is so much material to write about and prepare videos of, but for now let’s stay with our favorite after six months of travel.

Visits of at least a week…

So, with six months of travel, we’ll include Phoenix/Scottsdale in that mix of cities and towns.  And, we’ll only include towns and cities that we spent, let’s say at least a week in, not even a weekend as in Cancun, or long weekend, let alone a layover day as we did in London and Frankfurt.

Joanie on Westminster Bridge over the River Thames looking towards Westminster Palace, partially under renovation.  Big Ben out of the picture to the right.
Photo by Scott 6/2020

Though I am sure London and Frankfurt would get high marks, and we took some good photos in the few hours there.  We couldn’t rate them fairly, one way or the other.  And, we’d love to spend a month of more in London and Frankfurt, as well as their nearby towns and cities.

Scottsdale / Phoenix

The cities and towns we will consider as our favorite, including Scottsdale/Phoenix, as our home base, are Lisbon, Split, Estoril/Cascais, towns in the Algarves and along the Silver Coast, and Guadalajara.  We won’t include Porto where we spent a couple weeks in December 2019 / January 2020, nor some of the towns we spent a week or so in Costa Rica, back in 2019.  Costa Rica is a whole other excellent visit to write about.  And, Porto is a great city to visit, along with the towns of Coimbra, Viseu and Aveiro in that part of Portugal.

Scottsdale is one of…I don’t know, 20, 2 dozen towns around Phoenix.  In short, Scottsdale and surrounding towns, are a good place to raise a family and a great place to visit.  Now, when I say to visit, I mean between end of September and start of May.  Otherwise, it get’s pretty warm; June, July, August and into September!  But yes, golfing, hiking, shopping, restaurants, resorts, baseball, car shows, golf tournament, and every sport to check out.  And, Arizona in general is great to road trip around to other cities, towns and sight seeing, either in that classic 50’s, 60’s top down Corvette or Porsche, or on your touring motorcycle. 

On to Portugal…Estoril / Cascais

We’ll start with our first stay of Estoril/Cascais in June.  And yes, the airports were at 10%.  Airlines still packed the people in the planes though.  And, the beaches were easily half capacity if not even less.  Restaurants were open, but tables spaced and just not many people out.

Our first night out at Marcais for our birthdays.

Estoril/Cascais are adjacent towns some 30 km west of Lisbon, aka Lisboa.  Estoril and Cascais, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoril have beautiful beaches facing south, still part of the Atlantic, known as praias in Portuguese. There is a wide promenade doubling as a wave breaker protecting slopes that connect Estoril to Cascais.  The waters of the Atlantic in the summer are relatively cool 65F, similar to San Diego, for those of you in the U.S.  The waters were surprisingly calm, making for good swims.  The restaurants are excellent, especially with the variety of seafood.  There’s plenty of shopping, markets, clinics, etc.  The very affordable, 35 minute train is the way to travel east/west from Lisbon to Cascais with several stops in between.  A bit more read on our first week of travels in Portugal.  

Lisboa

In August, we stayed in Alfama, one of several neighborhoods of Lisbon.  Alfama is possibly the oldest area as it is home to the Castelo de Sao Jorge, Lisbon’s Se De Cathedral, and the 2,000 year old Roman theater, Teatro Romano.  Alfama is the classic charming neighborhood with the red clay tiled roofs, medieval cobblestone, narrow streets, the historic trams, churches and cathedrals, colorful buildings, plazas, landmarks, shops, sidewalk cafes and restaurants.  Alfama is with it’s hills, and lot’s of stairs, but those hills make for nice views of the city and river at almost every other turn.

The public transportation is very good and very affordable.  The taxis and Uber are available.  The bus system is very good and the historic trams from the 40’s are constantly driving by for one to get on and ride to various areas around town.

View to the east, from our first pad in Lisboa, December 2019,
towards Castelo de Sao Jorge on the hill. 
Photo by Scott 12/2019

Lisbon is a very international city and has the history to back that up.  From before the Romans, and throughout WWII, Lisbon was known for it’s spies, between the Allies and Germany, back and forth to Morocco, towns like the famous Casablanca, Tangiers and throughout Europe.  We had asked a couple Uber drivers about any language barrier problems, English, etc., and except for Spanish which the Portuguese do not like you speaking Spanish to them, they get visitors from all over that part of the world; German, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, the English, and the Scandanavian countries.  The Portuguese are very adapt at the languages. Now, the more rural you get, the more it’s just Portuguese, but the larger towns and Porto and Lisbon, one can get buy with some Portuguese and your native language.  And did I mention, the Portuguese do not like you speaking Spanish!

One little tip.  Wherever we went, a little Italian was welcome anywhere.  I know a bit of Italian, and found myself just using certain phrases if I couldn’t get the Portuguese out, and a little Italian seems to warm everyone.  Even here in Mexico, though I know some Spanish, Italian works nicely in a pinch.

Now, back to the beaches, there are no beaches, praias, off Alfama, and this part of Lisboa, as it’s the river, the Tagus River, that runs along this stretch of Lisbon, flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.  So, if you stay in Alfama, and you want to spend the day at the praias, you take the train or drive to the beaches further west, some 20-30 minutes.

The Algarves

Now, in July, we got out of Lisbon and traveled to a couple areas of Portugal.  The Algarves, the southernmost part of Portugal, is almost a must do/see.  I mean if you have something else going on important, then ok, but otherwise get down there for some time, with plenty to do, fun beaches, great Atlantic waters and beautiful scenery.  We spent a week or more in the towns of Albufeira and the town Olhua just east of Faro.  We visited Lagos on the west end of the Algarves as well as the far eastern towns of the Algarves; Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Altura and Tavira.  Good toll highways and minimal traffic made for ease of travel from one end of Portugal to the other actually.  Albufeira is a good town to visit year round with great beaches, warm summer waters, 70F, and all the services from hospitals, clinics, to shops, markets and restaurants and a variety of lodging.  There really aren’t any luxury resort areas, for the good or bad of that, but beautiful beaches facing out to the south.

Olhua is a good town, but if you are looking for a beach town, it’s not exactly the town to go.  Everything is there, and definitely has its areas to walk through narrow cobblestone streets of shops, friendly people and restaurants down to the markets near the water.

A portion of beach, Praia de Dona Ana, in Lagos of the Algarves,
Southern Portugal along the Atlantic Ocean.  Photo by Scott 7/2020

The Silver Coast

Between Lisboa and Porto along the coast is known as the Silver Coast.  A beautiful stretch of mountains and beaches with the beauty and sometimes harshness of the Atlantic Ocean pounding the coast.  At times it reminded us of the drive up Highway 1 in California and what the California coast must have looked liked a hundred years ago.  We stayed in Sao Martino de Porto, a small beach village closer to Lisbon than Porto, near and south of the beach town of Nazare.  Sao Martino de Porto is small, but a great beach town for the family to summer 2-3 months and use as a base to visit other small towns in the area, as well as visit Lisbon to the south, and Porto to the north.

Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean of a stretch of beach along the Silver Coast of Portugal, between Sao Martinho do Porto, a beautiful, quaint seaside village and the fun seaside town of Nazare to the north.  Photo by Scott 7/2020

Split

Without a visa for Portugal, or any country being part of the Schengen Area, one may stay for 90 days.  So, though currently not a part of the Schengen Area, Croatia became our next planned visit to land.  Croatia, one that was a fingers crossed let’s hope it’s as good as we are reading and photos seem to be, was a great visit.  We would have loved to stay another month, as part of our original plans, but we made the tough decision to travel to Mexico, primarily because Indonesia closed down.  We definitely hope to visit Croatia again.  We stayed in Split, and Old Town Split was awesome, the history, the buildings of hundreds, couple thousand years of age, the food, the people, the weather, being along the Adriatic, the islands, all awesome.  If we had stayed in November, we would have island hopped on one of the ferry type boats down to Dubrovnik.  And, the forest areas with the waterfalls would have been another day trip or two.  There is a lot to do, family friendly and a beautiful country to explore.

The centuries old portion of Split known as Old Town Split and the pretty boat harbor.
Photo by Scott 9/2020

Guadalajara

Guadalajara, Mexico, in our so called back yard, is loaded with culture.  But, then again, we love Mexico and would like to experience Christmas, if not in one or some of the villages, then in Guadalajara with the festivities and decorations in and around all the plazas and churches.  It is our first time to Guadalajara.

And, we are so grateful they opened up the plazas.  The difference between activity with the plazas fenced off and the plazas open is…well, to put it simply, it’s children laughing and running and having fun and not.  And, it’s the same numbers of people fenced or not, all constrained to the sidewalks and edgy or allowed to breathe and smile.

The always gorgeous Guadalajara Cathedral, especially when lit at sunset, and in the evening.
Photo by Scott 12/2020

Anyway, I digress a bit.  So, most of the towns we’ve visited in Mexico have been on a coast, except for Nogales.  We’ve wanted to visit more of the mountain villages and towns, as well as Mexico City, and will do so, though we are becoming a little more sensitive to higher elevations.  Even our Flagstaff in Arizona at 7,000 feet takes us a while to acclimate now.  Guadalajara was an interesting surprise as we didn’t realize it was so large and populated.  We prefer larger cities and Guadalajara is a bustling, very active metropolis with a great deal going on.  2020 is hardly slowing these folks down.  Of course, the food is great, museums all over, beautiful cathedrals and churches and historic buildings, and very friendly people.  We so missed our Mexican food after 4 months in Lisbon and Croatia, a good Margarita, Tequila, Mescal, mmm, so missed all that!

Mexico or Portugal

What we found interesting, which we sort of intuitively were thinking, and one reason why we started in Portugal and not in Mexico, is that there is traveling in Mexico, town to town, and then there is traveling in Europe, town to town.  Of which, one could compare traveling town to town in the U.S., state to state.  It boils down to the Schengen Area of Europe enabling people to cross borders without any of the potential visa issues.  You can travel the same distance in Mexico and Europe.  However, the cultures between European countries can be so different traveling around Europe; Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, along with the other 2 dozen or so countries.  Now, I know we don’t have the subtle differences between regions in Mexico figured out, but I think you probably know what I’m trying to get at.

“…but, not my favorite…”

So, right about now, I’m feeling a little bit like Roux, Depp’s character in Chocolat, when he was letting Vianne in on his favorite.  “…mmm, it’s good…but, not my favorite…”

If you haven’t seen Chocolat, it’s a must see.  We’d  love to spend the weekend in and around the quaint riverside village of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, known as Lansquenet, in the movie Chocolat, some 30 miles northwest of Dijon in Burgandy, France…wine, cheese, bread!!

hmmm…so,

As you may have already guessed, and while we love our Scottsdale home area, loved Split, loved the Silver Coast area, loved the Algarves and all the beach towns we stayed at, and not to forget Guadalajara as one of our favorites…yes, Lisbon, Lisboa, is our favorite.  And, though we haven’t visited all the great cities in Europe, I think we would probably always choose Lisboa.  Lisboa is a totally international city, where many languages are spoken, with great history, great cuisine, great attractions, so much to do, affordable, good medical, safe, great weather, great climate, and of course, the people are awesome.

If you are pondering where to visit in Europe, especially if you like the Southwestern, SoCal, climates of the U.S., Portugal is alluring and has it all, throughout the year.

Planning & Design

Yes, if you have any design consultation, some design work you need created, that you have questions about, take a look at the design pages. 

Drop me a note and I’m happy to have the conversations with you.

Scott