Easter week in Portugal

What a great idea to travel to Portugal to celebrate my mother’s birthday! We all met up in Lisbon (even my brother flew in all the way from Hongkong) where we spent a nice weekend enjoying this colourful and interesting city. Staying three nights at Pousada de Lisboa, a restored palace at the Praça do Comércio, was quite a treat. Beautiful interior, best breakfast buffet with lots of local specialities and perfect location! They even offered a small birthday cake and a bottle of champagne on the big day.

Just staying for the weekend didn’t leave us too much time to explore Lisbon, but we did see a few of the main attractions. Strolls through Chiado and Bairro Alto, a trip with one of the iconic vintage trams, Belém and Parque das Nações showed us different sides of this city, which is certainly one of Europe’s most picturesque capitals. Unfortunately, the queues with tourists outside of Castelo de São Jorge, Mosteiro dos Jerónimos and the very popular café Pastéis de Belém were so long that we didn’t have a chance to visit these places.

For those of you who have been here I don’t have to mention that Lisbon is a mecca for foodies. We were not disappointed! Both the birthday dinner at ‘Estorias na Casa da Comida’ with its delicious tasting menu, and a real seafood treat at ‘Cervejaria Ramiro’ the following evening lived up to its reputation!

After the weekend in the capital we picked up our rental cars and drove east to the tiny village São Lourenço de Mamporcão in Alentejo. Our little country house, rented through Airbnb, turned out to be a lucky punch. Tasteful interior with lots of nice details, cosy and well equipped.

We had our own garden where Robin picked oranges every morning to make fresh juice for breakfast. The swimming pool was nice to luck at but a little too fresh for most of us (both Robin and my father couldn’t resist the one afternoon it was sunny). In the evenings we sat in front of the large fireplace and enjoyed its warmth.

The days we spent exploring the area. Alentejo varies from open rolling plains of the south to the granite hills that border Spain in the northeast. The landscape is primarily one of soft hills and plains, with shrubs and olive trees, grapevines and the native cork oaks. The number written on a peeled cork oak refers to the year it was stripped, e.g. 9 refers to 2009. It takes 7 to 10 years until the new layer of cork has grown thick enough to be harvested again.

We also drove through plantations of eucalyptus trees which I later learned was for large-scale toilet roll production. Typical livestock are cow, sheep and goat, all their milk producing some of the best cheeses I have eaten.

We visited the towns of Évora, Estremoz, Évoramonte, Elvas, Monsaraz, Vila Viçosa and Marvão, all beautiful examples of medieval architecture with cobblestone streets and white washed buildings. Many of them are Unesco World Heritage sites and really deserve it!

Évora is one of the bigger cities in Alentejo and has a well-preserved old town centre, still partially enclosed by medieval walls, and many monuments dating from various historical periods, including a Roman Temple. Here we had lunch on the stunning main square Praça do Giraldo, before we visited Igreja de San Francisco and the adjoining Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones). Quite a special and a little creepy place! We also walked up to the Roman tempel Templo de Diana, believed to have been constructed around the first century A.D. and part of the historical centre of the city.

Vila Viçosa Castle surrounded by deep ditches is another very impressive site. Recently restored, it contains both an archaeological museum and a surprisingly impressive hunting museum with exhibits mostly from Portugal’s former African colonies.

Marvão is mentioned in the New York Times bestseller ‘1000 Places to Visit Before You Die’ and we didn’t get disappointed. Its site on the highest crest of the Serra de São Mamede, close to the Spanish border, is simply stunning. Inside its well-preserved walls are narrow streets lined with white houses. We followed them up to the impressive castle and spent quite some time exploring its tower, garden, cistern, watch towers and the long wall around with its splendid views in all directions.

The weather could have been better – we did have quite a few showers and it could have been warmer, but we enjoyed spending our holidays in this lush and very green landscape with all its wildflowers. All the small villages, often on top of a little hill and usually with its own castle, shine like white pearls from afar. Its inhabitants often don’t speak other than Portuguese, but they make up for it with their friendliness and helpfulness. And if needed, there’s always Google Translate…