where to go in Portugal

A perfect weekend in Oporto

~ saltofportugal ~ 4 Comments

Perhaps you need a change of scenery to recharge your batteries, but lack the time and energy to plan a perfect weekend. If that’s the case, we’re here to help!

Book a flight to Oporto, a city in the north of Portugal. Then, reserve a room at the Freixo Palace, an aristocratic hotel where you’ll be treated like royalty. Next, check the program at Casa da Música, a great performance center designed by Rem Koolhaas, and buy tickets if there’s a show that interests you.

After checking into the hotel, relax with a glass of white port while enjoying the panoramic view of the Douro river. In the afternoon, visit Serralves, a modern art museum designed by Siza Vieira, a Portuguese architect who won the Pritzker prize. For dinner, choose Pedro Lemos or DOP, two restaurants that combine traditional inspiration with great artistry.

On the second day, go on a cruise of the Douro river. You’ll see many Oporto landmarks, such as the Dona Maria bridge designed by Gustave Eiffel. Enjoy a “cimbalino” (that’s what Oporto residents call an espresso) at the Majestic Café. After coffee, the obvious next stop is Arcadia, an artisan chocolate maker.  Don’t leave Oporto without seeing the Lello bookstore, the place where J.K. Rowling found the gothic inspiration for Hogwarts.  Enjoy a lunch of simply great food at Adega S. Nicolau and spend the afternoon visiting one of the port-wine houses.  For dinner, go to Casario, a restaurant that surprises and delights.

You’ll go back ready for a fresh start with sweet memories of a wonderful weekend.

Click here for Freixo Palace’s website and here for Casa da Música’s website.
Serralves, Rua Dom João de Castro, 210, click here for website.
Pedro Lemos, Rua Padre Luis Cabral, 974, click here for the website.
DOP, Palácio das Artes Largo de S. Domingos, 18, click here for website.
Majestic Café, Rua Santa Catarina, 112, click here for the web site.
Arcadia, Rua do Almada, 63, click here for website
Lello bookstore, Rua das Carmelitas 144 , Porto.
Adega S. Nicolau, R. São Nicolau, 1, Ribeira. Tel. 222-008-232.
Casario, Praça da Ribeira, Viela do Buraco, nº19, click here for web site.

An eternal river

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The small town of Carrasqueira, close to Alcácer do Sal, has one of the most unusual monuments in Portugal: a primitive wharf made with sticks and planks, know as “cais palafítico.” Fishermen built the wharf in the 1950s and 60s to gain easier access to the riches of the Sado river: clams, oysters, octopus and fish.

Sitting on this wharf, it is easy to imagine the past, when Phoenicians sailed the Sado carrying the precious salt harvested from the river marshes.  It is also easy to imagine the future, since the majestic Sado will continue to flow for as long as time flows.

An enchanted bookstore

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Lello, a bookstore in Oporto founded in 1906, is famous for its exuberant neogothic architecture. In the early 1990s an English teacher called Joanne Rowling spent many hours here, in the small coffee shop on the second floor, working on a book about wizards. The book’s hero, a boy called Harry Potter, goes to Hogwarths, a school of witchcraft and wizardry whose revolving staircase and gothic motifs are likely to have been inspired by Lello’s interior.

If you visit Oporto, don’t miss the chance to visit Lello. And, if you do, please buy a book. In a world where bookstores are becoming extinct, we need to preserve places where we can still find magic.

Lello bookstore, Rua das Carmelitas 144, Porto.

Traveling in Portugal

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It is great fun to read John Murray’s “Handbook for Travellers in Portugal,” published in London in 1864.  He warns that, to explore far-distant valleys, hills, and mountains, the tourist in Portugal “must be prepared for poor accommodation, poor food, and great fatigue.” But, at the same time, “to one who is in pursuit of scenery, more especially to the artist, no other country in Europe can possess such attractions and such freshness of unexplored beauty.”

So much has changed in the last 150 years! You can now travel throughout Portugal in great comfort, eating delicious food, and staying in elegant hotels, pousadas and bed and breakfasts. But, what remains unchanged, is the freshness of the country’s beauty. Take a look!

Bem vindo!

~ saltofportugal ~ 1 Comment

It means welcome in Portuguese. Welcome to our blog about places to see, food to eat, wine to drink, poetry to read, and whatever else comes to mind. The Portuguese navigators discovered much of the world four hundred years ago. But the world has yet to discover Portugal. So the country remains the last secret of Europe. A place of castles and palaces, of mountains and valleys, of sand and sea. All bathed in warm light, all cooled by the breeze that carries the ocean’s salt, the salt of Portugal.