Alentejo
Six of the best in Alcácer do Sal
Alcácer do Sal is one of those Alentejo towns that is a sight for sore eyes, yet remains hidden from the gaze of mass tourism. […]
Alentejo
Alentejo
Eight of the most beautiful towns in Portugal
Marvão comes in at first position as it dominated our view for four months. Perched on a rock overlooking the golden Alentejo plains, this walled, Moorish town near the border with Spain is as stunning up close as it is from a distance. […]
Food & drink
Why eat out in a restaurant?
There can be inverse snobbery at play when it comes to Michelin star cuisine. It’s often described and dismissed as fancy or pretentious by people who prefer their food to be conventional. […]
Alentejo
Where is Portugal’s Costa Vicentina?
Where is Portugal’s Costa Vicentina? It seems like a simple question. But the answer isn’t as simple as you might expect. This week, whilst pulling together images for an article we’re writing about hiking in […]
Living Abroad
Following the curve, living with lockdown in Portugal
Less than 24 hours later and I wish we’d bought more at the Alentejo supermarket. The madness we’d been reading about in British press reports descends on Portugal. There are queues of shoppers at each till, their trolleys piled high with produce including, of course, multi-packs of toilet paper. […]
Europe
From Florence to fishermen’s jetties, 10 views of the year
The most valuable treasures, whatever form they take, don’t just fall at our feet. If they did there would have been no Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, or James Tiberius Kirk. We have to seek them out; to boldly go where, well, some others have gone before. […]
Europe
Traditional vegetarian options in European walking destinations
When travelling we occasionally get tired of traditional cuisine in some destinations. This happens when restaurant menus vary little from one to another and mostly involve meat, meat, or meat. When this happens, we are on alert for any local dishes which don’t involve a slab of dead animal. […]
Alentejo
Ten scenes of the Alentejo in Portugal
Ask me two years ago what visions the word Alentejo formed in my mind and my immediate answer would have been vast golden plains; a landscape devoid of people save for a handful of settlements, […]
Alentejo
Rock and Soul in Beja
I didn’t expect this. Covering almost all of the gable end of a house is a huge blue and red rooster made from discarded pieces of metal. Portugal seems to have a thing at the moment for oversized ‘rubbish’ animals. The rooster’s tail feathers block part of a window whilst a stray metal breast feather juts out over a door […]
Alentejo
It is simply Alentejo, not the new Tuscany
Driving through an endless savanna where mounds rather than hills rolled lazily toward infinity, a travel article I’d read in The Guardian a couple of years ago popped into my head. It was called ‘A foodie tour of Portugal’s Alentejo’ and claimed that Portugal’s largest region was being touted as the new Tuscany. […]
Europe
The end of spring in central Portugal
The season has changed. This hit home on Friday in the supermarket where there was a distinctly different vibe. People were dressed in full on summer uniform. There were telling empty places on the shelves where boxes of Sagres beer and sacks of BBQ briquettes should be. […]
Europe
Choco frito, the taste of Setúbal
The obsession with choco frito is said to have started in the days when cuttlefish had no commercial value. So the fishermen who sailed the waters south of the Tagus, from the Sado Estuary down to Sines, tended to keep chocos for themselves […]
Food & drink
Raising a glass to the vineyards of Europe
It was the second time in just over a week we’d stayed in a vineyard. Both cases prompted thoughts of many other visits to vineyards around Europe, visits that had formed long-lasting, warm and fuzzy (not just thanks to enthusiastic tasting) memories. […]
Alentejo
Into Alentejo, a road trip around the Sado Estuary
Although no distance as the crow flies, the transformation between bustling Setúbal and the sparsely populated, tree-fringed, white sands on the other side of the estuary was astounding. Within moments of disembarking we were on our own… […]
Europe
Ten tasty hot sandwiches to try in Portugal
There are countries where finding something with a local flavour (no international fast food franchises allowed) to satisfy this yen can be problematic. Portugal isn’t one of them. […]