Portugal was a destination that only more recently caught my attention. There were a few reasons for this; it was beautiful, full of culture, was said to have mostly friendly natives, and was one of the most affordable places in Europe to visit. It seemed like a good way to get back into European travel as the first European destination I’d travel to since CoVid. I planned this vacation with my #1 travel roadie, my friend Ayesha. And we decided the places we wanted to visit most for our first time in Portugal were Porto, Lisbon, and the Algarve. And since each of these destinations have their own character and way of life, I’ll be making three separate blog posts for these destinations.
Porto
We traveled in early June, started our travels in the North, and continued to go South from there. Since Porto was the most northern destination on our travel itinerary, we flew in here from the US. If you have really bad anxiety issues, I probably wouldn’t recommend flying into Porto if you are traveling out of the Charlotte, NC (CLT) airport. I’m only kidding a little. If you are on anxiety meds, there is a possibility that you may need to use them for this part of your flight journey. Or at the very least, just plan your flight itinerary a bit better than I did.
My flight to Porto would start in CLT and involve two connections in London and Madrid. The longest portion of the flight would be operated by American Airlines with my two shorter connecting flights being operated by American Airlines partner Iberia Airlines. Let me first say that even though American was the operator of the longer flight, the entire flight had to be purchased through Iberia. I was very nervous because this was my first time booking a flight with Iberia at all, let alone an international flight. My concerns were solidified once I had to make a change to the date of my returning flight with Iberia. Their customer service via their website or via phone is practically non-existent. Don’t even bother. I always book an airline’s version of main cabin, that allows for changes and flight credit in the event of cancellation. For Iberia, they call this their Optimal rate. It seemed that I was successful in changing the date of my return flight on Iberia’s website because I was sent a new itinerary confirmation for the updated return flight date. However, when I went on Iberia’s website and entered my confirmation number to view my updated flight and see if I needed to reselect a seat on my new return flight, I couldn’t even see my return flight on my trip itinerary on the website. I called the customer service line and was told that I’d need to pay an additional $600 to complete the change for the updated flight. Keep in mind that I said I booked their Optimal rate that allows for free changes. At this point, I knew that I wasn’t going to get the help I needed from the Iberia customer service phone line. So I tried another method, Instagram business messaging. This is where I was able to get the help I needed. If not for this IG team, this booking experience could’ve been even more of a disaster than it already was.
Now that I’ve vented (lol), let’s get into how the actual flights went. I left CLT at 8:15pm and arrived to my first connecting airport, London Heathrow, at 9:05am. This was the longest flight. I hadn’t taken a flight this long since 2015 to Istanbul. So needless to say, I’m now in my early 40s as opposed to being in my early 30s for my last long international flight. Yeah, the body behaves differently in your 40s than it does in your 30s. So I wanted to be a bit more prepared this time around with middle-aged comforts like compression socks, a travel pillow, and a travel blanket; especially since I knew I would be in economy and not business class for this long haul flight. Haha. I don’t remember why, but I either forgot or didn’t have a chance to put the compression socks on before my flight. Don’t make the same mistake that I did. I had to put mine on halfway through the flight in a cramped economy class seat because my calves and feet were starting to fall asleep. As for the food, it was practically inedible. I understand airlines are limited with what they can serve as an in-flight meal, but the US can definitely do better. I also took a long flight with American on my way home and the food in the opposite direction was much better.
The connection in London was a bit unnerving because I couldn’t see my connecting flight on the departure/connecting boards. There was my flight number but it was only showing as delayed with no gate info. That meant that I couldn’t go sit down at a gate while I was waiting to see how long my flight was delayed by. And there was literally no seating in this area of the airport. So I probably stood for 30-45 minutes in this area before I was finally able to see my flight on the board. This airport is much too large for this miss. Anyhow, once I finally knew what my flight was, it was pretty simple from there. But once again, there wasn’t enough seating and most people were standing waiting for their flight to start boarding. This was a little more understandable though because it was the beginning of peak season and there were likely more people traveling than usual. What I will say is that I booked premium economy on Iberia because it wasn’t much more than standard economy. I was really impressed with the amount of leg room in Iberia’s premium economy. It’s such a shame that their customer service is so awful.
My next connection was in Madrid and an hour and 20 minute connection was definitely not long enough. It took forever to get through immigration and the airport is huge so I literally had to run to make it to my gate on time. I was sweating by the time I made it there, and no one wants to get on a flight sweaty. Nonetheless, I was getting on and that’s what mattered.
I could’ve opted to take the train to our hotel in Porto, but after all the chaos with my flights, I was in the mood for the easiest option possible. I decided to take an Uber, which cost me approximately 23 euros. My friend took a taxi from the airport and payed almost double that, so I’d recommend Uber over a taxi if you’re staying in the same area of Porto as us.
We were staying at the Icon Duplo Ribeira and this was my favorite hotel of our whole trip in Portugal. The decor was beautiful, room was spacious and clean, staff was amazing, and breakfast was one of the best hotel breakfasts I’ve ever had. It was also in the perfect location! We walked everywhere. But one tip is if you plan to spend a full day or two in Porto seeing all the sites there, the easiest way to do this is by booking the Hop On Hop Off tour. There is a red and blue line. We only took the blue line because we only had one day to spend on the tour and we really wanted to go to Villa Nova de Gaia. However, if you have more than one day, I’d do the red line one day and the blue line a different day.
The highlight of this part of Portugal was by far our full day tour to the Duoro Valley. The tour guide was awesome and we had such a great group of people. We visited three different wineries and I loved them all for different reasons. We also did a boat ride on the Duoro river. The scenery is breathtaking!
We were also able to fit in an impromptu tour to Costa Nova & Aveiro. We loved the tour, but unfortunately the tour guide wasn’t good at all. He was very vague with all of his instructions on times to be back to the bus which created a lot of confusion for both us and other tour participants.
Two restaurants that I would highly recommend in Porto are Muro do Bacalhau and Adela São Nicolau. At Muro, we had something that was different than anything we’d ever had. It was a bread stew. I didn’t know if I’d like it, but it was really good. They have a duck rice entree that I could’ve eaten everyday while in Porto. It was delicious! At Adela São Nicolau, my recommendations are the octopus fried rice and the veal stew. The restaurant is small and there will likely be a wait, but the food will be well worth it!
That’s it for Porto, but there was still much more of Portugal that we were planning to see. Next, we headed to Lisbon. Stay tuned for our Lisbon adventures on the next blog post.
This featured blog entry was written by travelfanatics from the blog For Travel Fanatics Only.
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