With all of the surfing, hiking and general beach-ing you’re bound to be doing in Aljezur and the surrounding area, you’re bound to work up an appetite. For the self-catering types, you can check out Aljezur’s Mercado Municipal, which is located in the square just near the bridge in town. It offers for purchase fresh fish, fruit and vegetables every day.
If you prefer to let someone else do the cooking for you, there are numerous restaurants in the area serving excellent Portuguese cuisine…

A few months after I had started in my blog in 2009, Elizabeth Montalbano contacted me because she wanted to write a guest post about a life-changing trip she took to Aljezur, Portugal, to learn how to surf. Little did she (or I) realize just how life-changing that vacation would be. Fast-forward four years later, she contacts me to let me know that she moved to the charming little town of Aljezur and would I be kind enough to let my readers know about her guesthouse, Casa Boa Vista, which she rents out. Here, she describes why Aljezur is such a special place that you should at least visit it — and possibly even move there!

I think I’ve found a valid excuse for why it’s taken me so long to do a blog post about the Monserrate palace in Sintra: it’s very hard to describe! I was there exactly a year ago, and while I haven’t been ruminating on it every single day since then, I must admit that even […]

Quinta da Regaleira, an eclectic, almost spooky palace in Sintra, Portugal, was nothing short of amazing. most visitors to Sintra, however, will probably end up passing it over for the more popular palaces. If we weren’t staying within walking distance from it at the historic, luxurious Hotel Tivoli Palácio de Seteais then we probably would have […]

If Lisbon reminded me of San Francisco, then Sintra reminded me of Newport, Rhode Island. When Sintra was in its heyday, the richest of the rich built incredible palaces of sometimes questionable taste but never lacking in detail, opulence or personality. And just like in Newport, these homes/castles are no longer inhabited but are open […]

Lisbon and Seville. Seville and Lisbon. Perhaps they aren’t the two most natural city combos, like London and Paris or Vienna and Prague. But when I was planning my trip in October, they seemed like the perfect pair, and I was right. Lisbon and Seville were just a four-and-a-half-hour drive apart, which sounded great since […]

Lisbon has emerged as having one of the most exciting dining scenes in Europe. There’s an abundance of cool restaurants, and I’m proud to say that despite having a baby in tow we managed to eat at some of them during our time there in October. (We also could have subsisted on pasteis de nata […]

When we were planning our trip to Lisbon, we knew we wanted to stay in an apartment — as opposed to a hotel — because it was our first big trip with our 11-month-old baby. A one-bedroom apartment would give the baby ample space to play, as well as provide a sleeping area separate from the living […]

The hills of Lisbon can be tough on the eager sightseer. But not only does the terrain offer ample opportunity to burn off pasteis de nata and Santini’s gelato, it also offers incredible vantage points to take in panoramic views of the city. The Portuguese are very proud of these scenic outlooks and call them miradouros. […]

Standing on the Praça do Comércio in Lisbon and gazing at the bridge, I had a total deja vu moment. What was the Golden Gate Bridge doing in Lisbon? Or did the six-hour flight I boarded last night actually take me to San Francisco instead? Bear in mind I was very jet-lagged at the time… […]