Portugal
February, 2026Lisbon
A shroud, drifting lazily through these cobblestone streets.
Loud city. It’s made up of narrow old streets and crosswalks, rough cobblestones and puddles. The fashion and style of the city doesn’t fail to disappoint. The metro is loud and sprawling, and while the city is walkable, hills and steep roads will take you by surprise after every other turn. It very much can feel like a maze at times, turning in and around on itself. The food was often cheap and great, and there were plenty of amazing cocktails to be had. As well as coffee. Strange, wonderful encounters.
- Architecture 95%
- Walkability & Transit 90%
- Food 70%
- Rain 110%
- People 50%
Restaurants
1. A Padaria Portuguesa
Alcântara
Best breakfast I have ever had in my life. Doesnt look like much, but just trust me on this.
Bars
Sneaky Sip
Principe Real
Fantastic cocktails, would absolutely go back on a Friday night. I recommend the Sky Buggy.
The Secret Poets Society
Chiado
Good cocktails, but strange. I may have enjoyed the poetry more than the cocktail. Watch out for pretty Hungarians. One may follow you home and give you two unforgettable nights.
Coffee & Shops
The VENUE
Principe Real
Great co-working space, but a bit expensive. They have this little choclate and mousse cake, quite good.
Ás de Espadas – Vintage
Baxia
Great selection and a very kind clerk. This is where iI got two pairs of vintage, pleated, high waisted pants. Say hi to Lili for me.
Places
1. B MAD Museum
Alcântara
Just by LX Factory, and a far better way to spend your time. An amazing collection of art deco and art nouveau furniture and decor, with a wine tasting. I wonder if they still have my umbrella.
2. Mosteiro dos Jerónimos
Restelo
Unforgettable architecture, though I would go early or late, because you will be far from the only person there. The cloisters are worth a look, but if you’re too lazy to wait, the church is a stunner too. It’s worth listening to, as well. Strangely enough.
3. Padrão dos Descobrimentos
Restelo
It was worth the look only because it was so close to the monastery, but man was this cool during the rain, the mist, and while listening to some truly epic music.
Nazare
Nazare. Nazare, Portugal. I first heard of Nazare as a kid, it was from Eden, who would sit there and tell me about their wild dreams, and the places were they may come true. Not all good dreams, mind you. A good way to describe this place. A dream.
Storm beaten, and wet as the ocean floor. It was as through the sea itself had spent a millennia trying to hop up on shore. It felt like walking through a dream that had forgotten it was a dream. And I will dream of those thundering waves and drowned streets for as long as I live.
I feel like I could remember this place.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I let the wind take me. Sweep me off my feet and carry me away. Then again, I suppose that’s exactly what I’m doing.
Lagos
The Town
The town of Lagos felt old in a much more recent way than Lisbon. Faded plastic, broken windows that no one had bothered to fix for a decade, old rusted barbed wire, and wooden doors rotting off of hinges. This was pressed in between coffee shops that charged 5 euros for a latte, and resturants that served food that was medicre at best. And toilet beer…
The street I stayed on was quaint, lined on either side with small white plaster houses with red roof tiles, laundry billowing in the cold wind.
The Cliffs
The clifs of Lagos were unlike anything ive ever seen in my entire life. Sheer and crumbling yellow limestone and deep red sandstone. each crack and nook, each flat area, was alive with bright verdant vegitation. And beneath it all, waves of viberant teal smash against the stones, wetting and carving the rocks away until all that is left are sovweing pillars that seem to defy logic.
I felt like I was walking though a postcard. The cliffs start just beyond the ege of the town and run all the way up the length of the cost. I actully found them by accident.
In the center of Lagos the decay makes me sad. Watching tourists skitter over the bones of a rotting old city like cockroaches. But off the main streets, the occasional crumbling building feels charming. Like an old man who knows that he’s aging, and has decided to let it happen gracefully.
Maybe I’m being cynical. I don’t think Lagos is going anywhere anytime soon. But I hope the next time it tries to reinvent itself, it buys full priced drywall.
- Architecture 70%
- Walkability & Transit 50%
- Food 10%
- Tilework 100%
- Weather 75%
The cliffs, as beautiful and alive as they were, were decaying, much like their town. The waves below, and the rain above, were a constant force of disintegration that acted upon their rusted faces, dissolving them away piece by piece until all that is left is their red bones. And it was constant. You could feel the instability beneath your feet, earth waiting to give at the first chance it gets.
I’m genuinely surprised that more people aren’t hurt or killed at these cliffs. Myself, admittedly, included. You can see trails snaking across the treacherous terrain, just waiting to dump a foolish tourist into the churning waves below.
We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming with:
Silves!
Cute little town, with the most castle-like castle I have ever seen, which is actually saying quite a lot. Made of red sandstone, and standing proud since the early middle ages, it feels like something right out of a movie set. I took a quick day trip here, and it was worth the hour-long train ride.
Evora
I loved Evora the most out of all of the places I went to in portugal. It's a small town out in the middle of the countryside, deep inland to the east of Lisbon. It’s surrounded on all sides by cork trees.
The middle of the city is ringed by ancient walls and the interior feels old in a way Lagos and Lisbon did not. Medieval streets are so tight that cars often can’t pass. Aqueducts over a thousand years old had been absorbed into the very fabric of the town, becoming the facades of houses and arches over parking lots. And at the top of the city, a temple built for a dead man that died before we even had stirrups for riding horses. Evora’s development, patterns, and very heartbeat is shaped by the bones of the past. Literally.
We bones are here, for yours await
“We bones are here, for yours await
Where are you going in such a hurry, traveller?
Stop… do not proceed any further; You have no greater concern,
Than this one: that on which you focus your sight.
Recall how many have passed from this world,
Reflect on your similar end,
There is good reason to reflect
If only all did the same.
Ponder, you so influenced by fate,
Among the many concerns of the world,
So little do you reflect on death;
If by chance you glance at this place,
Stop…For the sake of your journey,
The more you pause, the more you will progress.”
– António da Ascensão Teles, 1845; written on a plaque outside the chapel
While the ruins in the center of the city are pretty, they did not speak to me.
Now the walls? The walls spoke to me. Well, not literally. But I think as Americans living in the 21st century, we underestimate a good wall. The walls in Evora go around the whole city center, and many of them are from the 1st century. Everything changes when you step outside of them. The architecture, the nature of travel, the flow of traffic. And these walls? You cant climb these walls. If you are just a person, with no army or plane, you cant get over these walls. They are absolute. I don’t think we appreciate that enough. I walked nearly a third of the way around the city center, just marveling at these walls. Hell, I’d come back just to complete the circuit. Love me a good wall.
Porto
It's all to loud for me here.
I shouldn’t have gone to porto. Getting there was a nightmare, and my time there was short, and spent mostly in my airbnb. I was just tired. Way too tired. I should have stayed in Evora. But I didn’t, so I may as well tell you about Porto.
Porto is loud, and busy, and crazy once you get across the river. But it is very, very beautiful. One of the prettiest cities I’ve ever seen. I’d like to go back sometime, and enjoy my time there.