Wanderlust Portugal

This is a matter of deep national pride. Forget about football and Christiano Ronaldo, forget about port wine, this is our best ever national product. The seafood from our shores. Want to know the big secret why Portuguese seafood is considered among the best in the world? First, we have a maritime territory of over 3,877,408 square km! Those waters lie in the Atlantic Ocean and the constant mixture of warm water v cold water creates the perfect environment for many species. In some places they still fish like they've done for thousands of years, with small colourful fishing boats (called A arte Xávega ) and sometimes with just line and hook for bigger fishes such as tuna or sword fish. Some of the best towns for fresh fish on the mainland are Sesimbra, Setúbal, Portimão, Olhão, Peniche, Nazaré, Póvoa de Varzim, Ovar, Figueira da Foz and Tavira. The islands of Azores and Madeira also have top notch quality when it comes to seafood. What kind of seafood can you expect to find he...

Almost everyone loves to go for a swim. Humans have a natural love for water and for bathing. Most of us turn towards the sea for our holidays, to enjoy those beaches. Nowadays maybe there is a bit too much people for our liking, at least during certain times of the year. The sea is also more polluted than ever before, so where to turn to if you want to have some peace and quiet as well as clean water? The mountains!  Here we have several mountain ranges to choose from, the one I will recommend to you in this post is the highest mountain range we've got on the mainland called Serra da Estrela (mountain range of the star). It is quite a vast region in the inland, lying some 3 hours northeast of Lisbon, with many beautiful villages and places to visit. Just outside the village of Loriga you can find an awesome fluvial bathing spot. Just for the scenery it is worth a visit. You are really high up, not at the top but almost, and the water comes streaming from the highest pe...

Sometimes the most humble of dishes is the most tasty of them all. Who hasn't been saved, warmed up and spoiled by a family member giving you a proper soup in times of need? Soups are also very tied to local culture and local produce. One of the first things I look for on a menu is if they've got some soup on offer that I've never tried before. Also, if the restaurant has a good soup, it's usually an indicator that they probably have good main dishes. So, what kind of soups can you expect to find in Portugal? Overall, the vegetable soup ( Sopa de Legumes) with a wide array of versions is the most common one found all over the country and works for vegans as well. Why eat the veggies when you can drink them and spare your tummy the extra workout having to digest them? Can be pureed or with chunks of different veggies. Often includes potatoes, carrots, cabbages and beans/chickpeas.  A special mentioning is the Canja = chicken broth soup (we cook a whole chicken...

By the riverside in Lisbon you can nowadays discern a white modern building that seems to fit in perfectly with it's older surroundings. I am usually not a fan of modern architecture, I almost never swoon over something younger than Art Noveau, but in this case I shall admit that they have managed to do something beautiful with modern building techniques. The building is the new museum called MAAT. A museum with temporary exhibitions regarding art, architecture and technology. It was built by the EDP Foundation (Energias de Portugal) in 2016. The architect firm responsible for the building was AL_A (Amanda Levete Architects) from London and the exterior landscape project by the Lebanese architect Vladimir Djurovic. The MAAT lies in the Belém area of Lisbon, just by the riverside, close to where the Tejo river meets the sea. The view from there is breathtaking, especially during sunsets or if you want to catch a photo of the 25th of April bridge which looks almost like the Golde...

Being such a small country we still have an immense variety of dishes. Thanks to our many micro climates, varieties of soil, and the different cultures that passed by through history, we have something for everyone to get excited about. Whether you eat meat, seafood or a vegan diet you will be able to find delicious stuff, just remember that it is much easier to find vegan food restaurants in the bigger cities but much harder in a smaller town in the countryside. And of course, the logic is that the closer you are to the coast, the fish dishes will be much better than inland due to the freshness of the seafood. Local produce is always preferable. That is why a passion fruit dessert tastes ten times better on the island of Madeira where they grow them rather than on the mainland. And boy, do we produce a lot of food! Eating out in Portugal doesn't have to cost a lot. You will be able to feel more than satisfied for less than 10 euros if you know where to look. Normal price rang...

Let me present you to one of the most scenic and romantic beaches there is in Portugal. The view from the beach is to die for if you like the combination of white and yellow limestone cliffs, green Mediterranean vegetation, rocky outcrops and a dark turquoise blue sea. It lies close to the town of Sesimbra, like one hour south of Lisbon by car, which is a wonderful old fishing village with some of the best seafood restaurants in the country. So don't give that town a miss if you are already in this part of the world.  The name of the beach would translate to something as: Beach of the stream of the horse . So where is that horse? It is the rock by the water, in the middle of the beach, which you can define as looking like a horse's head in a certain angle. In low tide there are some cave like formations there and you can go (Ha! Who am I kidding? I mean crawl) through. So if you got some playful kids or want to take some awesome photographs with your handsome better half...

It's been a while since I've updated the blog. I haven't had the time to properly sit down and write lately. At the moment, what with quarantine and all in Portugal, time is definitely more readily available. So to try and do something useful, funny, and hopefully interesting, I will be writing on my travel blog again. As most of you have noticed, travelling for pleasure has basically stopped all over the world. Many of us are sitting at home or at work, thinking what we would do if we were free again. Most of us are surely missing being able to visit our loved ones and friends. Some of you might also be yearning for a change of scenery since a home is our safe zone but maybe not the most adventurous of places to be. The free souls of this world have only one escape now, and that is their imagination. The hardest part of this quarantine is to not be able to visit the seaside for me personally. I live quite close to it yet it has never felt this far away... So, let's i...