Until recently, my knowledge of Portugal was limited. I remember hearing about Vasco Da Gama when I was in elementary school, but if you asked me as an adult what he discovered, I’d have been hard-pressed to answer (correct response: a sea route to India).
Geographically, I always thought of Portugal as “that small country near Spain.” And while I knew that Portugal once controlled a vast empire, it now seemed like just another also-ran in the contest for global hegemony.
I gained a better appreciation for Portugal last month when, at the invitation of a friend with ties to the country, we visited for a week and took in the sights.
Our itinerary was ambitious, and a car was necessary to make it happen. Manual transmissions are standard in Europe, and I never learned how to drive stick shift, so I was removed from the driving solution.
My wife, who hadn’t driven stick in 25 years, took on a share of the driving duties and did an admirable job, though with the bumps, sudden turns, and near misses of European traffic, it sometimes felt like we’d signed up for the Jason Bourne Automobile Tour of Portugal.
The first highlights we saw in Almada, just outside of Lisbon, seemed strangely familiar—the longest suspension bridge in Europe, which is the same color (“International orange”) as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and similar in design to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge; also, a giant statue of Christ the King, inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
We recovered from jetlag with an easy day at the Costa de Caparica beaches, and got to watch up close as the local fishermen pulled in their nets of sardines and mackerel.
From there, we traveled north to Porto, known for its port wine. Bowing to the relaxed standards of European drinking traditions, my wife and I allowed our kids to participate in a port wine tasting and basically watched them get tipsy for the first time sitting across a table from their parents. My “Father of the Year” award will arrive shortly, I expect.
We stayed at Pousada Mosteiro Guimaraes, a former monastery that’s now a hotel, where our kids got locked out after a late-night swimming session, and we caused enough noise and commotion to make up for centuries of silence.
Next it was on to Coimbra, famous for its university, which was founded in 1290. We toured the school, and between the black capes provided to students and the ornate, bat-monitored library, along with Porto’s distinctive Livraria Lello bookstore, it’s easy to see how J.K. Rowling found visual inspiration for the Harry Potter series when she lived in Portugal in the early 1990s.
The Castle and Convent of the Knights Templar in the city of Tomar, and Obidos, a medieval town surrounded by castle walls, were amazing, but so were the Palace of Mafra, the Castle of Moors and Palacio de Pena in Sintra, and our tuk-tuk tour of Lisbon. English is spoken in most of the tourist areas, but traveling with someone who spoke Portuguese smoothed out any potential stumbling blocks.
The food was fantastic, a combination of restaurants and home-cooked meals by our friend’s family. I learned that wine comes not just in red or white, but also green. My kids learned, through hard-earned experience, that bidets are not just “toilets for short people.”
There were also happy accidents, like coming upon a free pipe organ concert at the Clerigos Church in Porto, or getting to see some of Tomar’s “Festa dos Tabuleiros,” which happens for one week every four years and covers the town in colorful paper flowers.
I tried to be humble, appreciative, and respectful, and thankfully my mutterings of “Oh my God” and “Jesus Christ.” upon entering the exquisite interiors of churches, or a museum area filled with dozens of crucifixes, seemed to be taken as expressions of religious awe, rather than mere astonishment at the scale and beauty of the place, or an utterance of exasperation, respectively—I mean, after 10 or 20 crucifixes, you get the point already, right?
Portugal isn’t perfect, a fact most obvious in its inexplicable tolerance for graffiti, even on the walls of some of its most beautiful places. But it was an incredible place to visit. Everyone we met said we needed more time in Portugal to truly experience everything it had to offer, and I believe them.
Our flight back to New Jersey effectively drained some of the magic from the traveling experience, thoughtfully preparing us to resume life as usual. The last time I flew to and from Europe, 20 years ago, you were granted an actual can of soda; now you’re provided a half-filled paper cup, and you’d better hope there’s no turbulence. When it comes to airline food, choosing a dinner option is still like picking what kind of coal you’ll get at Christmas. I did think it wise, however, that while the maps displayed on our seat-back screens marked the locations of famous shipwrecks—Lexington (1840), Titanic (1912), Thresher (1963)—they refrained from doing the same with the sites of comparable air disasters.
Approaching Newark at night, we spotted the flashing lights of police activity across the city, a stark contrast to the welcoming daylit views of terra-cotta rooftops that greeted our arrival in Lisbon. Within a few minutes of landing, we were dealing with a moody taxi dispatcher who helped to fully consign the trip to the category of a pleasant, unforgettable memory.
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