Hello! We have made it to our last country in Europe! This is country number 16 on our trip and from here we head to Dubai before coming home. It’s crazy to think we have been jumping through so many countries over the past 3 months and it’s all coming to a close. What a place to end it as well!
We travelled to Portugal by bus and it went pretty well. I usually get really car sick, but I have found that if I’m on a nice bus with air conditioning and we are travelling along the motorway, I can actually get away with watching things on my phone. So I had downloaded Stranger Things on Netflix which I had been dying to watch and didn’t get a chance before we left NZ!
Armação de Pêra
Our first stop in Portugal was Armação de Pêra which is a small beach town right down the south of Portugal. Wow – it was an amazing place to stop!
When we arrived at our hostel, we realised that the town was almost empty because the summer season was over. It was about 28° and we were ready for the beach! We dumped our things in our room and went to spend the afternoon at the beach. It was a nice golden sand beach and there were not many people there! We didn’t have to fight for space, we didn’t have to navigate around loungers and umbrellas to get there. It was bliss! It set the tone for how we would spend our time there.
The next day we did a bit of a beach hopping trip. We took a bus which goes along the coastline and we got off at Marinha Beach. It was about 9:30am when we arrived (the bus along the coast only runs every 2 hours so we had to get out early!) so we grabbed our spot on the beach and enjoyed the quiet for a while.
We loved relaxing in the sun on another golden sand beach and I even had a bit of a swim. Although it was fairly quick! The south coast of Portugal is in the Atlantic Ocean which is not warm at all! The water was freezing cold, but a great way to cool down so that you could spend more time lying there!
After a while we headed back up to the carpark where there were some food trucks. We grabbed some lunch before heading on a walk between beaches along the Algarve coast (the coastline we were staying on). The beach we walked to was called Benagil. Along the way there are heaps of caves in the cliffs that you can see, and there are beaches in some of the caves which are only accessible by boat.
Once we got to Benagil, we decided that the beach we had come from was much nicer so we took the bus back and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the beach.
Our final day in Armação de Pêra was spent at the beach again! We just lay in the sand and swam to cool down. It was great!
Porto
Our next stop was Porto! We took a bus which changed at Lisbon before heading to Porto. We had decided to do Lisbon and Porto in a weird order because it’s much cheaper to fly out of Lisbon. So after two buses, we were in Porto!
We arrived in the afternoon and didn’t do much that day. We found a little local place which was cheap for dinner, and otherwise just relaxed in our accommodation.
In the morning we found a little coffee shop just down the road and I reckon it is the best coffee I have had in Europe! We ordered coffee (I had Oat milk and they were using Oatly which tastes so much better than most of the cheap brands they use around Europe) and we had avocado on toast for breakfast. It was just so good. The place was called Combi Coffee Roasters. Highly recommend!
We had booked a walking tour so we headed over to that after our coffee. We really enjoyed hearing about the history of Porto and seeing a mixture of the new and old parts of the city.
After our tour, we found a little sandwich place which was yum! We’ve found it weird in Portugal that so many places only take cash. It’s very annoying sometimes!
We then went to the tower which is in the centre of Porto. It is a bell tower that was designed to be a landmark in the city. It was then gifted to the church next door upon completion. We loved the views from the top! It is the tallest building in Porto and it always will be due to a law preventing other buildings from surpassing it.
In the evening we went on a port wine cellar tour. It was really interesting to hear about how port wine is made, and we got to taste three different ports at the end. I felt that they were too sweet for my liking! I struggled to finish them but Miriam loved them. It was definitely a cool experience. The cellar we went to has been operating since 1750 and it’s all built within caves in the side of the river. Very cool.
After the tour we found a place on the side of the river to have dinner. It was nice to sit and enjoy sunset before heading back to bed!
The morning came with one last stop at Combi Coffee before heading to the bus station for our final European city – Lisbon!
Lisbon
The bus trip to Lisbon seemed pretty quick and we were there by early afternoon. We dropped our bags at the hostel and we went straight out for some lunch!
Our first experience out in Lisbon wasn’t particularly nice. We had so many people offer us drugs and felt like we were going to be scammed around every corner! It wasn’t a good first impression.
We went and chilled for a while at the hostel before heading out again on an evening walk. This time it was much nicer and we enjoyed walking around and checking out the surroundings.
For dinner that night there was all you can eat pizza at the hostel which was awesome! The manager was making the pizzas and they just kept coming. We really enjoyed it.
That evening we realised that we were staying in the busiest area of Lisbon and it did not stop at night. It was extremely warm at night and the hostel didn’t have air conditioning, so the windows had to stay open in our room. Cars were driving and honking all night, and the road was cobblestones which made it a lot louder. The bars were open late so we could hear people all night as well. We had earplugs but they weren’t good enough! I eventually had to take a sleeping pill and still managed to have a terrible sleep. The top of my shopping list for the next day was better earplugs!
Day One
On our first day we had breakfast at the hostel because they did free crepes and scrambled eggs! We then went and found a really nice coffee shop down the road. It was great to experience another good coffee roaster in Europe.
After our coffee we went on a walking tour of Alfama which is one of the old suburbs in Lisbon. It was really interesting to learn all about the various stages of history in the area.
After the tour we had some lunch and spent time wandering around again. We eventually went back to our hostel to relax for a bit.
In the late afternoon we went on Tram 28 which is the famous tram through Lisbon. It is an old tram that reminds me of the ones at MOTAT. It is one carriage and it winds through the steep, tight streets of Lisbon. It was a really cool ride!
We made our way back to the hostel and cooked ourselves dinner.
Day Two
The new earplugs were a huge improvement so a much better sleep was had! Thank goodness for that.
On our second day we headed to Sintra to see the colourful castle. We took a train out there and then a bus to the castle. There was a massive queue to buy tickets so we went online and bought them which meant we skipped the queue. People are weird.
Once into the park, we headed up the hill to the Palace of Pena. We joined the queue for our time slot which was 12pm and we were already getting quite hungry. They didn’t let our time slot in until about 20 minutes after 12 which was pretty annoying! Thankfully we were standing in the shade.
The castle is pretty incredible. It has many sections and it is painted in very bright colours! It has walls covered in tiles and amazing views. We really enjoyed walking around but we were getting pretty hungry! We joined the line for the cafe and finally got some food around 2pm.
After lunch we wandered around the gardens before heading back to Lisbon. It was a great place to spend the day!
In the evening we had our final European meal after wandering aimlessly and trying to find something to eat. It wasn’t the best meal we had in Europe, but it’s a lot of pressure to put on a restaurant after 3 months of travelling!
Our last day in Europe
Our final day was spent getting coffee, eating breakfast out, and packing up our things to get on a plane. We checked out of our hotel and headed to the airport! We were way too early at the airport and the check in staff hadn’t even turned up to work yet!
Eventually checked in, we got on the plane for our first leg to Heathrow where we would transfer to Dubai!
It’s crazy that our holiday is nearly over, but we have one last stop with a few days in Dubai!
Bye for now! 👋🏻
