We greatly enjoyed our four weeks in Porto. It is a beautiful city with perfect August weather (highs most days in the low 80s Fahrenheit, lows around 60 degrees, lots of sun and no rain), and easy to get around. Though we didn’t see or do anything too spectacular in Porto, it was very liveable…
Category: Europe
Learning in Lisbon
While Faro was a great introduction to Portugal, we really started to understand the country during our week in Lisbon. It began with a great start – a cheap and easy Uber ride from the train station to our Airbnb apartment where we met our host (review below). The apartment was spacious, clean, and had…
Faro – Our Introduction to Portugal
Portugal is the first new country we’ve visited since the beginning of COVID and we were very excited to experience a new place. We weren’t sure how similar or different Portugal would feel from Spain. After all, they’re close neighbors. However, we quickly learned they are very different and as much as we love Spain,…
Sunny (and hot!) Seville
We spent a terrific (but toasty) five days in Seville as we made our way from Ronda to Portugal. Five days was just enough time to get to know the city, see the main sites, and fall a little bit in love with Seville. Plus eat lots of tapas and try the famous regional vino…
Porto: We’re Home
I’m going to keep this short because I’m very behind on the blog and also have lots of work things going on, and we’re trying to get out a lot to enjoy Porto. But so far, so good here! Here are some things we’re enjoying already about Porto. Public Transit Soon after arriving, we decided…
Ronda Romantica
Ronda wound up being everything we hoped for in a four-week stay. As I said in my Ronda: We’re Home post, we chose it because the elevation meant it was a bit cooler in June and July than most of Spain. This proved to be true throughout the four weeks and we were able to…
Malaga on the Sea
After Granada, Sara, Chad, and I hopped on a bus and headed even farther south to the coast and the city of Malaga. It was not our best bus experience. There were two buses headed for Malaga at the same time and the Granada station mislabeled which bay each would be in. The resulting confusion…
Granada and the Alhambra
The day after Sara joined us in Madrid, we all got on a train to head south to Granada. The lure of Granada is that it is home to an incredible medieval Islamic palace and fortress complex called the Alhambra. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Spain and was at the…
Ronda: We’re Home
Though I still have a post or two to catch up about our earlier Spain travels, I want to go ahead and record my early impressions of our long stay location, Ronda. Ronda is one of the white villages of Andalusia, the southern region of Spain that was controlled by the Moors until the 15th…
A Day in Alcala de Henares
A day trip is a great way to see more places without the hassle of checking into a new place. We took several of them during our last stint in Europe. And Madrid offers many great day trip options: Toledo, Avila, Segovia. But since we wanted a place as easy to reach as possible, in…