Read
Curated itineraries, local tips and inspiration for your next adventure in Portugal.
About a dozen of them remain, with names like Pra-Kys-Tão and Bota-Abaixo, run as tiny independent republics where dinner is cooked in a shared pot and fado is sung after dessert. An honest guide to the houses where Praxe still pays rent.
Skip the Lello queue. Porto's real Art Nouveau hides in gates, balconies and stained glass nobody photographs. A four-kilometre self-guided walking route, seven stops, and one golden rule: always look up.
In Lamego, dinner is a strategic three-stop marathon: a glass of Douro white at Old Rock Caffe, proper petiscos at MARIA chic, and the closing Tawny at Brian Boru. An itinerary for those who know petiscos require method.
Lamego has more museums than seems reasonable for a town of twenty thousand, and not all of them deserve your time. One is among the best north of the Mondego. Others you can skip without missing anything. This guide tells you which is which.
Four Saturdays of fireworks over the bay, gardens in their second bloom, tuna in season, and levadas at their best. An opinionated guide to doing Funchal in June without falling for the €90 hotel-terrace trap.
In Olhão sardines are not poetry, they are mathematics: five to eight euros a kilo at the market, three minutes a side on the charcoal, and absolutely no gas grills. A guide without romance to the Algarve's best grilled sardines, far from marinas and six-language menus.
In Melgaço you drink the spring on an empty stomach, three cups a day, with a metallic taste and the discipline of an old termalista. An honest guide to the bicarbonate waters, the Alvarinho that justifies the trip and the cinema museum nobody expects to find 80 metres from the river Minho.
Guimarães is a twenty-minute walk end to end, but changing streets means changing centuries. An honest guide to the four main neighborhoods, three verified places to stay, and the areas where you definitely shouldn't.
Why does the best guide to Algarve beaches in June start on a Sesimbra terrace? Because the trip begins before the beach, and where you sleep the night before sets up the next day. Here is the route, with real stops, real prices, and strong opinions.
Half a million people, two-euro sardines, plastic hammers, and midnight fireworks over the Douro. An honest guide to Europe's biggest street party: where to eat standing up, why you should skip the Ribeira, and the one reason to be at Castelo do Queijo at 6am.
On 13 June, Lisbon smells of grilled sardines at nine in the morning and Avenida da Liberdade closes for the neighbourhood parades. This guide tells you where to eat the right sardine, which neighbourhood to avoid, and how to survive the year's longest night without paying eight euros for a warm beer.
Tour buses give Ribeira Brava five minutes. Stay for lunch and you'll find a church with genuine Manueline detail, a market with no tourist theatre, and espetada on a bay laurel skewer the way it should be done. Three hours, no rush.