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Curated itineraries, local tips and inspiration for your next adventure in Portugal.
Most of the coffee on the seafront is bad, lukewarm and overpriced. Learn what to order (bica, meia de leite or galão), how to escape the crowd, and why Nazaré's best coffee is drunk up in the Sítio, facing the lighthouse.
Everyone comes to Nazaré to stare at the giant waves. But there's a town you do on foot, from the Sítio to the Pederneira, with three levels of difficulty and a cliff that punishes anyone who forgets a windbreaker.
Forget the giant waves: with kids, Nazaré is the funicular over and over, mackerel drying in the sun and a cone of walnuts at the viewpoint. An honest guide to eating without drama, when to go and what to do when the wind ruins the beach.
The giant waves are for Instagram. With kids, the real Nazaré is the 1889 funicular up the cliff, fish drying on nets and ice cream on the Avenida at dusk. An honest family guide, no fairy tales.
The alheira isn't just a snack: it's a Sephardic disguise that became IGP-stamped heritage. Where to eat it, when to go, and why Mirandela earned the title of smoked sausage capital.
In Ribeira Grande you still eat like it's thirty years ago: queijadas for breakfast, alcatra and limpets for lunch, tea from Europe's only plantation in the afternoon. A guide with no tourist menus, just what to order and what to skip.
São Miguel's second town has the best baroque in the Azores and almost no queues. From the eight-arch bridge to the warm pools of Caldeira Velha and the black sand of Santa Bárbara, this is the Ribeira Grande the tour coaches ignore.
Ribeira Grande is not a destination, it is a base camp. Within half an hour you have boiling calderas, tea estates, black-sand beaches and thermal baths. With a spare day, hop to Horta before dinner.
In Ribeira Grande, coffee is an excuse to slow down. An honest guide to what to order at the counter: griddle cooked bolo lêvedo, fennel confeitos, Gorreana tea, and the galão that tastes better after a surf.
Dawn waves on the black sand of Santa Bárbara, tea picked on slopes facing the Atlantic, and two hot-water soaks in one day. Ribeira Grande does nothing in a hurry, and that is exactly why it is worth it.
In summer, Porto spends the day escaping the sun and the night celebrating it. An opinionated guide to working with the heat: gardens in the morning, tram 1 to the Foz with grilled fish in Matosinhos, train escapes, and nights that only start at midnight.
Two and a half hours from Lisbon, the Atlantic arrives cold and opinionated. Wide beaches without the crowds, fish straight from the boat, and an estuary made for sunset kayaking: why the Alentejo coast is not the Algarve, and thank goodness for that.