The town is beautiful.  The buildings along the River Douro are colorful and provide the most classic view of Porto, but all around the city there are art deco buildings and churches covered in tiles.

Ian found an effective way to hack the steep streets:

A visit to the Serralves Museum and the Kopke port house rounded out the trip.

As we climbed the steps to the top of the monastery we got to enjoy the very frightening fountains along the way:

Eek! This is the stuff of nightmares.

Get this guy some Flonase!

These sweet little cherubs with the leaky heart were particularly disturbing:

What is this supposed to signify?

When we reached the park at the top of the monastery we were rewarded with the most autumnal scene ever:

A stop in a nearby national park made for a really beautiful, if odd, day.

Nazaré.  Nazaré had the first sandy beach we’ve seen in a really long time, and it also wooed us with this amazing fish stew:

Óbidos: a sleepy town in wine country with a castle and lots of shops selling the local ginjha (cherry liqueur)

Cute and quiet backstreets in Óbidos

Coimbra, a small city that’s home to Portugal’s oldest and most prestigious university.  It was also once Portugal’s capital.  Coimbra students wear long black robes à la Harry Potter, much to my delight.

Coimbra cloister shadows

A wizard in Coimbra!

Aveiro, which which might as well be Venice.  Aveiro is not to be confused with the nearby town of Arieiro, which it turns out is nothing at all like Venice.  Not that we’ve made that mistake or anything.

Funchal felt really different from the western side of the island.  It’s a real city with lots of hotels and tour groups, and yet it is beautiful and mellow and still very tropical.  On our first night there we walked around the waterfront promenade and enjoyed the warm evening.

Another day, we rode a skyrail up to the spectacular tropical gardens at Monte Palace.

Native fauna

Of course, our primary business in Funchal was tasting Madeira, so we made sure to make plenty of time for that.  D’Oliveiras gave us free tastings, wisely knowing we’d feel obligated to buy a small bottle.

Blandy’s Wine Lodge is one of the largest Madeira producers and makes the wine we always get at home.  We went on a nice tour of their cellars and learned about the aging process.  They also had a museum with lots of old record books, winemaking equipment, and thank you letters from dignitaries.  My favorites were the wine-stained letters from Winston Churchill, who seemed to enjoy the product:

Madeira damage. We didn’t do this all by ourselves.

For those of you who are curious, our verdict is that 5 year Madeiras are the right purchase.  The price premium for 10 year and 15 year bottles doesn’t seem worth it for a small increase in flavor complexity.  Our favorites are the medium-dry madeiras from Verdelho grapes and the medium-sweet madeiras from Boal grapes.  So, in a way we went this far just to learn that the 5-year Blandy’s madeira we buy at home is our favorite.  But now we know

We rented a car from the airport in Funchal to drive across the island to Porto Moniz.  We spent most of the drive with our mouths open, in awe of the scenery around us.  Green cliffs and waterfalls would appear out of nowhere.

Sometimes we also had to yield to cows:

And even though some of the roads were the scariest we’ve ever driven on, we were still instantly smitten with Madeira.

Can’t really capture just how incredibly steep some of these roads were.

We stayed at the amazing Aqua Natura, which we can’t recommend highly enough.  The natural pools, seafront balconies, fresh breakfasts, and low rates captured our hearts and we promised we would return.

Natural pools, filled with sea water during high tide.

View from our balcony. We would have paid extra for this balcony, but every room has one exactly like it!

One day we took a hike to this beautiful place:

The trail was along the levadas, which are irrigation channels that run all over the island.  The entire hike was really lush.

Some of it also looked spooky:

We half-expected pterodactyls to appear at any moment.

We’ve moved on to the largest city, Funchal, but Madeira continues to be excellent in every way.  More updates to follow!

You can eat your pastel and have an espresso at a long marble counter, Italian style, while watching new batches of pasteis being made.

There are other famous pastel de nata bakeries in Lisbon, most notably in Belém, but Manteigaria is the one that stole our hearts.  We’ll be back.

The dishes were all delicious, and it was clear the staff had a lot of fun presenting them with some flair and mystery.  It was really dark in the restaurant so the following photos are not the best.  Here’s the full menu:

1st course: Margarita apples. These apples were themselves a cocktail, having been soaked in (or injected with?) tequila and lime.

2nd course: El Bulli’s famous exploding olives. These are basically liquified olive and brine.

3rd course: Shrimp ceviche. We are suckers for ceviche, as you know.

4th course: Tempura avocados. Lisbon is the first place we’ve been on this trip that regularly uses avocados and we’ve missed them so much.

5th course: Beef croquettes. Simple but yummy.

6th course: Foie gras with fig jam, basil, and parmesan. Sounds weird but totally works.

7th course: Smoked mackerel, apples, and celery. This arrived inside a glass dome full of smoke.

8th course: Tartare cones, a la French Laundry. One is beef and the other is tuna. These might have been our favorites.

9th course: Cod croquettes with a spicy, tangy sauce (ingredients still a mystery).

10th course: Hamburger and tots, but perfectly done.

11th course: Chocolate mouse cones with fleur de sel.

12th course: Lime ice cream and yuzu foam inside a green apple candy shell, served on lemon curd. We love all those things!

Set on a hill surrounded by pine forest and lots of mossy rocks, the Moorish castle was awesome.  It was also raining and misty when we arrived, which felt appropriate for the setting.  From the Moorish castle we could also see the acid-trippy Pena National Palace, which was quite the contrast to our current setting:

We took a bus over to the palace and walked up some very steep paths to get to the entrance.

The bright colors and wild architecture made me feel like I was at a Disney attraction (in a good way).  The interior of the palace was not exactly understated.

Stag room. True to its name.

I found my dream kitchen:

Our third and final stop was Quinta da Regalaria, which has large gardens surrounding a smallish palace.

There are underground tunnels throughout the park that lead you to mysterious places, such as the bottom of this well:

The whole visit was pretty surreal.  We felt like we had stepped into Myst or Middle Earth.  Back home, we treated ourselves to a special dinner (post forthcoming) to cap off an excellent day.

The city is bright and colorful, and around every corner there are cute buildings, great tile work, and happy cafes.

I love the garlands that are strung everywhere.  Lisbon has lots of hills with panoramic city views.  We went to the Castelo São Jorge to get the lay of the land.

See the Golden Gate Bridge look-alike in the top photo?  Here it is again:

The bridge was actually designed and built by the same firm who did the Golden Gate.  It makes us feel at home, as do the hills, great restaurants, and these cable cars:

There is also beautiful stone work all over the city.  Lisbon will not stand for ordinary cobblestones!  A lot of the buildings and churches have impressive inlaid stone work as well:

The food alone would be reason enough to visit Lisbon, but we are so glad to have such neat things to look at while we walk off the calories.

Many restaurants in Portugal have a couvert, or a snack they bring you for a small fee to help cover costs and ensure a minimum bill total.  You can refuse the couvert if you don’t want it, but A Cevicheria’s fresh bread with octopus butter and gazpacho looked pretty good to us.  We also ordered a pisco sour from their limited (two drinks only) cocktail menu.  They know what they are doing with those two drinks – it was the best pisco sour I’ve had, and I sampled many during my semester in Chile.

A Cevicheria has a small menu with four or five ceviches and a couple of other fish and meat dishes.  We ordered two ceviches to share.

Salmon with corn, lime, mango, and orange

Tuna with kimchi, sesame, and avocado

I’m not sure better ceviche exists.  These dishes were phenomenal – perfectly balanced flavors, ample fish, great textures, and beautiful presentation.

For dessert we ordered the piña colada cake, which is a rolled cake with coconut cream, dulce de leche, and pineapples caramelized in rum.  It was as good as it sounds.

We tried to go back last night but the place was packed.  We will work around your schedule though, A Cevicheria!  If it means eating dinner at 4pm we will do it!