Portugal in 16 days

About two weeks to discover this sunny and charming country.

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• The Algarve

Let’s start with one week to chill and relax. Is there a better way to enjoy beaches and sun than being in the Algarve ? Welcome to the south part of Portugal !

We rented an apartment in Albufeira, a great place to enjoy beaches, sun and cocktails. But honestly, I was happy that we rented a car. The city is rather small so you can get tired of it pretty fast. Plus having a car is the best way to visit this part of Portugal. You can take public transports but you’ll be more flexible with your own car.

For now just relax and enjoy. 😎

• Lisbon & Sintra

Definitely have to be on your bucket list !
Lisbon is the Capital of Portugal and cradle of Saudade (deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic). Sintra is classified as UNESCO World Heritage Site for its numerous castles, town and historic passage.

After a week of chill in the south part of Portugal, it’s time to discover other cities ! Let’s start with Lisbon. We gave back the car, thinking it might be useless since we will be in big cities with good public transports and road network. So we took the bus from Albufeira to Lisbon, about 4h drive. We stayed 4 days in Lisbon, enough to visit the main parts.

To go to Sintra we took a train, about 45min away from Lisbon to arrive in this beautiful city. Here there are castles for everybody ! You really can feel that this place has had a huge history. We stayed only 2 days in Sintra and I would have loved to stay more. 2 days is short to visit the entire area. We decided to visit :
• Quinta da Regaleira : gorgeous castle where you can find the famous Hell stairs.
• Palàcio de Monserrate : palace with gigantic gardens. So huge, that you’ll find many variety of plants. One moment you’re in a western forest, 10 min later, you’re crossing a rain forest, a desert full of cactus, to finally arrived on a gorgeous lawn (originally imported from England).
• Palàcio de Pena : the most beautiful castle I’ve ever seen ! The famous colorful castle of Sintra. The park is also really big, we spent all the morning in it.
• Castelo dos Mouros and Palàcio Nacional de Sintra but just from the outside. All parks and castles have fees entrance… so we had to make a choice.

I truly recommend to stay longer if you enjoy castle and history, 2 days was really short.

• Porto

Biggest rival of Lisbon, known for its porto wine production and its history with the english. Nevertheless Porto is really authentic and truly show the face of Portugal.

We wanted to go straight from Sintra to Porto, but that wasn’t possible, we had to pass by Lisbon anyway. So we took a train to Lisbon, about 45min and then an other train to Porto about 3h.
Porto is rather quieter than Lisbon and in a way more authentic. I mean Lisbon is the capital, it might be hard to keep the authenticity while economically growing. So Porto is a really cute city, the way of life is more relaxed so it was perfect to end our stay in Portugal.

Now I get what Saudade means…