Sorry to derail a little bit; got “distracted” by Iceland! One of my friends said I shouldn’t be allowed to go on the next trip without finishing the trip reports of the previous trip haha! Back to Porto…our last half day of Porto since our flight was at 4:20 pm, what have we not see…
We were having a hard time choosing between the day trip to either Guimaraes (known as where Portugal is born) or Braga (the famous Bom Jesus de Monte). We started early at 8 am as the train journey took 1 hr and 15 min to Guimaraes directly from Sao Bento Train Station and only cost €3,10…
Can you imagine what kind of bookstore it is with a long line of people lined up an hour before it even opens? We arrived half an hour before it opens and we were like the 15th in line. Ohh and they charge an admission fee to go into the bookstore! Well it’s famous not only…
Early in the morning, we took the AP train at 7:45 to Coimbra which took around one hour. Coimbra….why I picked Coimbra? All because of the famous University of Coimbra library, one of the oldest and most beautiful library in the world. The long distance high-speed train actually terminated at Coimbra-B station which located a…
After three wonderful days in Sintra, we headed to Porto which became our favorite Portuguese city! I booked train ticket from Lisboa Oriente to Porto Campanha in exactly 60 days in advanced which saved me 40% at Portugal’s rail website: https://www.cp.pt/passageiros/en/ With the 40% discount, it was not a significant difference between first class and 2nd class train so…
The palaces and castles in Sintra were a shocking surprise architecturally but lacked one thing – the grand, huge palaces with hundreds of rooms. How could we visited all those palaces and castles in Sintra and not make a trip to THE national palace – Palace of Queluz? Palace of Queluz is just a short train ride…
Living in the real life fairy tale town of Sintra started with a royal healthy breakfast in the grand ballroom of Seteais Palace Hotel. Not to mention that there were only 4 guests having breakfast in such a big room, a couple in the table next to us and us. Not surprised since we were the first ones…
Sintra, how did I missed this real life fairy tale town all these years? The first fairy tale castle I visited was Neuschwanstein Castle which known to be the inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle. When I was searching for fairy tale castle, a colorful castle that stand high on the mountain above the clouds looked surreal, is this a…
We had a free day in Lisbon to make a day trip and usually it would an easy choice: Sintra. But we were going to stay 3 nights in Sintra after Lisbon, our choices were: Tomar (the beautiful Convento de Cristo), Obidos (a picturesque walled town but read that it too touristy), and Cascais (a…
Morning started with a first bite of Pastel de nata (Portuguese egg tart) in the luxurious ballroom with hanging chandeliers. Breakfast was included with our rate which was the norm for many Portuguese hotels so it was great because I always think breakfast is the biggest headache meal of the day – limited places that are…
MissVacation 