Europe
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Note 42 – Discovering Lisbon’s Belém District
It is Sunday, May 5th, on our trip, and most of the museums and attractions in Lisbon are closed – except those in the Belém district to our west along the Tagus River. As we had researched this in advance, our itinerary for Lisbon activities was created around this fact. We also decided that Belém…
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Note 41 – Walking Old Town Lisbon
The apartment we rented in Lisbon was one block from Pink Street, near lots of restaurants and bars, but with the shutters closed we didn’t hear excessive noise while we slept. Its location is on the border of the Cais do Sodre (towards the Tagus River) and Chiado (up the hill) districts making it convenient…
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Note 39 – Exploring Coimbra, Nazaré, and Óbidos with an Experienced Guide (Porto to Lisbon)
While researching tour guides on Tours By Locals for our days in Lisbon, we found a professionally licensed guide with over 25 years of experience that we thought we’d like, Carla C. She also offered transportation and guide services from Porto to Lisbon, in addition to standard tours in Lisbon. She appeared to be available…
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Note 38 – Douro Valley Visit
Day 3 of our Porto visit was our longest excursion of the trip as we boarded a tour boat for a leisurely cruise up the Douro River through two locks to Régua and the beginning of the Douro Valley wine region, visited a local winery, then returned to Porto via the Miradouro Train. We boarded…
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Note 37 – Portugal’s Roots – Braga & Guimarães
The Portuguese have a saying: “Braga prays, Coimbra studies, Porto works, and Lisbon gets the money and parties”. For our second full day in Porto, we scheduled a private tour north of Porto to the Minho region to find Portugal’s roots in the towns of Braga and Guimarães. We found the tour on Viator, provided…
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Note 35 – Porto Morning Walking Tour
For our first full day in Porto, our plan was a morning walking tour Paula booked through Tours By Locals, then lunch, then across the bridge to Vila Nova de Gaia (usually just called Gaia) for a port house tour in the afternoon. The original tour we booked was a half-day with a professionally licensed…
Notes By Nancy 