Portugal - Fav 5 {Travel Guide}

Fav 5 Travel Guides are a short list of the best things I've found to do, see, eat, or drink in a particular location. This guide is for Portugal. 

​This guide is timed just right in anticipation for the Portuguese Wine Flights and Pastel de Nata {event} on Saturday, September 21 in Seattle, WA. Tickets for the {event} will launch next week!

Look no further for more on International Travel or Fav 5 Travel Guides within the US.

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Portugal is a feast for the senses. The food and wine are delicious, the colors will amaze you, and there's art everywhere, including under your feet.

My Fav 5 {Travel Guide} for Portugal includes:

1. ​The Colors
2. Hand Painted Tiles and Limestone Sidewalks
3. The Douro Valley
4. The Seafood
5. Pastel de Nata

Bryce and I at the Luís I Bridge in Porto, Portugal in July 2018

1. The Colors

I love bright colors! I often buy my sneakers in 'big kid' sizes just so I can get the better, brighter colors. Portugal really celebrates bright colors and  it was apparent to me the second we walked off of the plane. The jetway wall was covered in an oversized and brightly colored ad for toilet paper!

The celebration of colors spanned Portugal from cozily stacked homes in Porto to the watercolor Pena Palace in Sintra. We strolled under colorful decorative flags, posed with a wall of rainbow tiles in a train station, and marveled at the similarly tiled giant statue of a woman at the coolest rooftop bar on Earth - Rio Maravilha in Lisbon's trendy Lx Factory. There's nothing like a little color to brighten up a great travel day! 

This oversized ad was the first thing I saw in Portugal! Similar ads line the restroom stalls in the airport.

These stacked and colorful homes are just next to the Luís I Bridge in Porto.

Pena Palace is colorful and amazing to explore! I swear it has to the the inspiration for the castle in Mr. Rogers neighborhood.

We spent several hours getting lost in Porto. This colorful display brightened my spirits, for sure.

Color, color, COLOR! When we bought our house our bathroom looked oddly similar to this wall. It's not a good look in a small space.

This rooftop bar is incredible. Look at the celebration of art and color!

2. Hand Painted Tiles and Limestone Sidewalks 

Portugal is known for its hand painted tiles. This wasn't something that excited me before our visit, honestly. Once we arrived there I really got it. You'll see displays of hand painted tile displays in all sizes ranging from your average indoor wall art to entire hallways and church exteriors. It's such an intricate and beautiful display of Portugal's culture, we have nothing like this in any place I've lived in the USA!

Portugal's artistic side isn't limited to tiles, though, the ground you walk on is actually made of art. The black and white limestone that makes up the sidewalks and parks in Lisbon are delicately and deliberately patterned into masterpieces. This article speaks all about how this trend came to be and you'll be hypnotized by the photos. It feels so fancy to walk on these gorgeous patterns although the limestone is super slippery so don't let it distract you too much! 

I recently told you a similar story about my obsession with the tiles used underfoot in Barcelona: Flor de Barcelona. There's just something so fun about the ground you walk on looking like a masterpiece that gets me!

An amazing and huge hand painted tile wall in Lisbon, Portugal.

This was one of the first things we saw in Porto, I wished I'd stopped to go inside this church. If the outside is covered in hand painted tile, what does the inside look like?

The sidewalks and parks are all covered in these beautifully patterned limestone tiles in Lisbon, Portugal.

More limestone designs and bright colors, Portugal is such a delight for the eyes! Can you tell this is near the water? It feels beach-y to me.

The limestone tiles are so pretty, but very slippery!

3. The Douro Valley

I do most of the trip planning and destination selection for my husband, Bryce, and I. As soon as Portugal was decided upon Bryce immediately demanded and and booked a tour of the Douro Valley.  Fine by me!

The Douro Valley is Portugal's famous wine region, a World Heritage Site, and home to more shades of green than I've ever seen in my life. We were picked up at our AirBNB in Porto and taken on a day-long tour of the giant valley. We rode comfortably in an air-conditioned van from winery to winery, to lunch, and to the (optional) boat ride through the valley. It was a DREAM of a day spent tasting wines and seeing different angles of the majestic valley. We drank Portugal's vine verde (green wine) and port wines, toured an olive oil distillery, and spotted fig trees. It was a perfect day. Here's a link to the exact tour we booked.

The Douro Valley Tour

Let me share two stories from our day in the Douro Valley day with you:

1. Our driver was a young and energetic man in his early 20's. We ended up driving through his hometown in the Douro Valley. We slowed down at his grandfather's house to see if he was home. Grandpa came out to kiss his grandson and to proudly meet and say hello to all of us. It was probably the cutest and most heartwarming thing I've ever seen! 
2. Late in the day our bus had to pull over for someone to "lose their lunch" after too much wine! I'm proud to tell you that it was neither Bryce nor I! #winning

The Douro Valley in Portugal is filled with more shades of green than I've ever seen in my life!

Hello from Douro Valley, let's drink some wine!

This is a happy Ang: wine tasting and fig tree spotting in Portugal.

What a view of the Douro Valley from under a fig tree!

The best winery visits have snacks paired perfectly with each blend: crackers, pound cake, and chocolates.

This guy surprises me with his stellar trip planning sometimes! Drinking wine and eating a pastel de nata on a boat in Portugal, what a day!

4. The Seafood

Three years ago I stopped eating meat. Since then I've been eating a pescatarian diet which means I eat fish plus dairy, grains, nuts, etc., but not meat or poultry. The only time I ever consider eating meat again is right before a big trip like the one we took to France and Portugal last summer. I panic that I'll miss out on getting the whole experience! 

I've learned that destinations near the water will always have amazing and plentiful seafood options. Portugal is right on the Atlantic Ocean and the seafood feast was never ending! I dined like a queen on seafood fritters, octopus, squid, crab, ahi, garlic shrimp, and lobster. Portugal is a seafood lover's dream.

Meat eaters needn't fret. Bryce ate plenty of Portuguese sausage and even tried the Francesinha sandwich which is stacked with 3 or more types of meat before it's topped with melted cheese and a tomato and beer sauce.

This octopus may look intimidating but it was super tender and delicious, I ate every bite of this dish!

This meal was simple and so delicious: squid, potatoes, and lemon. Bryce's Francesinha sandwich and fries can be seen in the back.

Garlic shrimp and a pile of buttery bread for dipping, YES!!

More octopus and some Portuguese sausage. We ate so well in Portugal.

Best. lobster. experience. ever.

5. Pastel de Nata

The absolute best part of Portugal is the Pastel de Nata. It's a little egg custard tart that you can eat for breakfast or dessert. They're best eaten warm and topped with cinnamon and/or powdered sugar. The "crust" is flaky, messy, and delicious. The filling is reach, creamy, and sweet. They're DELICIOUS and I think I ate 20 - 25 of them in one week's time in Portugal. 

The plural of Pastel de Nata is Pasteis de Nata. We ate pasteis in many bakeries and restaurants during our stay in Portugal and loved them all. We'd learned about pasteis in advance of our visit from the Lisbon episode of Somebody Feed Phil. In the show Phil goes to Pastéis de Belém, the bakery which claims to be the birthplace of the popular treat. Every local we'd met confirmed that Pastéis de Belém really does have the best product so we braved the crowded area of Lisbon and waited in the long lines to see for ourselves. The lines and employees are an efficient and well oiled operation, we moved through the line, ordering, and paying in no time. The pasteis at Pastéis de Belém lived up to the hype. They really were the BEST we'd had during our entire visit. 

Our first Pasteis de Nata and some very fancy espresso drinks at Manteigaria in Porto, Portugal.

We were very serious about our pasteis consumption, we bought extras and brought them to our AirBNB! Breakfast by the pool, anyone?

Pasteis de Belem truly does have the very best!

All of the locals we'd met told us that toping your pasteis with cinnamon is the way to go, versus powdered sugar!

Thanks for "visiting" Portugal with me! Please share this guide with anyone who's considering or planning a visit there.

Stay connected with Figs and Flights (Facebook! Instagram!) for next week's post and tickets to the Portuguese Wine Flights and Pastel de Nata {event} on September 21.

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