The day after discovering Sintra, Raquel was desperate to show me city she studied in and loved: Lisbon. So far Raquel had been an awesome tour guide as her knowledge of Portuguese history was impressive but considering that this was the city she loved I could only imagine that she would go all out on … Continue reading »
Filed under Portugal …
Sintra: Where castles are more schizophrenic than their owners
29/04/2011 Continental Portugal was not unknown to me until two weeks ago. I have always heard about how amazingly beautiful it is. One of my Brazilian colleagues once told a Portuguese colleague “Fiquei encantando com seu pais!”(I was enchanted with your country!). I now know exactly what he meant especially after Raquel showed me around … Continue reading »
Porto: Where wine becomes your best friend!
27/04/2011 Porto: Everyone I know that has been to the city loves the place. My friends who lived there constantly told me to visit. I’ve tried to organize trips to the city from London but in the end opted for other more ‘exotic’ places, because as I thought “It’s Portugal, I can’t be that great!”. … Continue reading »
Ribatejo: Where bulls hunt men and the horse is king
24/04/2011 and 26/04/2011 Easter weekend was spent with Raquel’s family in her hometown of Fatima. It was a good relaxed weekend with one touristy activity: going to the town of Tomar for coffee after Sunday lunch. Tomar is in the Ribatejo region of Portugal. It’s a central province famous for horse rearing and Portuguese bull … Continue reading »
When Travelling Tonito met Adventure Pants Leo… again!
I’ve written about how I met adventure pants here (click on word to see). We seem to have habit of somehow arranging our lives in such a way that we keep bumping into each other in different countries. We became friends in Istanbul, we then met in Abu Dhabi (twice), followed by meet up in Bangkok. … Continue reading »
Meet the Parents (and hope dad doesn’t own a lie detector)
After my two weeks in South Africa, I was back in London albeit briefly, as my flight from Johannesburg landed at 7am and later that day at 5pm I would be on another plane, this time to Portugal for the weekend with Raquel. It had the potential to be one those cringingly awkward weekends. Why … Continue reading »