While reminiscing through pictures of Portugal in preparation for this post I couldn’t decided on just a few pictures. I decided this post would mainly be a photo gallery. This was such a special trip for our little family and southern Portugal is beautiful.
We flew into Lisbon, drove about 45 mins west to Sintra where we stayed a few nights. Flying over and just the bit of driving we did through Lisbon, it sure looked like a gorgeous, vibrant and fun city. I felt a bit sad we would not be hanging out there this trip. Dolly had just turned two and city trips had proved no fun at that time with that age.
Sintra however was amazing. Old, colorful, lush and full of amazing, crackling buildings. The town is small and it sits atop a hill. Walking ANYWHERE there you encounter steep-ish climbs. Ben and I love to build in as much exercise as possible while traveling so we enjoyed this about Sintra.
Near Sintra we made a day trip to explore Pena castle and hike though the nearby woods, epic. Another day trip we drove north the the oceanside town of Nazaré. During the winter months this is home to the worlds largest wave so Ben was excited about this day. We had perfectly blue skies and warm weather however, the ocean was completely clam and flat as a pancake.
The next destination where we stayed 5 nights was in Lagos on the south coast of the Algarve. On our drive down we stopped in the oceanside beauty, Cascais, a lovely town where we got about a hour playing on the beach before a missive rainstorm had us running into the nearby McDonalds. After some nuggets and burgers we were back in the car, Lagos bound!
Lagos and all the towns and villages we visited on the southern coast was the highlight. Such a stunning pocket of the earth! The color of the ocean and the rugged ocean cliffsides were mesmerizing. This was the first trip we took since moving to Europe that truly felt like a holiday– the warmer weather certainly helped.
