join the johnson journey: pleasing, pretty portugal: porto & lisbon

On Saturday morning we headed to Porto bright and early from Madrid. Our AirB&B lady picked us up from the airport. The AirB&B was so so so quaint and cute. Definitely one of the best AirB&B's I have stayed at. It had an amazing view of one of the main bridges (Dom Luis bridge) connecting to the other side of Porto. Nick and I walked around for a bit around the city. We went into the main cathedral (Porto Cathedral). There was a gorgeous part of the church with all blue tile - see below for all the gorgeous pictures. The blue tile was everywhere in Porto. After we finished up at the church we headed over the bridge to go to our Port tasting. The views from the bridge are out of this world!! I took so many pictures and you just need to take a minute to look at them. We went to a place called Real Companhia Velha. We had a great experience there and I highly recommend this place if you are in Porto. It's a bit off the beaten path compared to other places that are closer to the water. But this place had a great VIP experience with a personal tour guide that showed us all around the main production area as well as the cellar. The cellar was just absolutely insane: some of the bottles were over 100 years old. There was the grossest mold and stuff growing on the bottles of port they kept down there. You have to see below for some pictures to believe it! We then had a lovely tasting with 5 different port wines. Such a personal experience that I highly recommend. After we finished up at the port place, we went for a bite to eat then climbed up the Clerigos Tower to get some amazing views of Porto. We then went out to a craft beer place called Catraio for a few brews and out to a nice meal at a restaurant called Brasao where we tried some local digs: ice cold porto tonic (port + tonic) & Francesinha! Guys.... this dish has cheese + enchilada sauce, no joke. It is insanely good and you must must try!

the view from our airb&b

our cute little airb&b

starting off this porto trip right..... with a little coffee & port

porto cathedral

such gorgeous blue tile

heading across the bridge

the absolutely gorgeous Dom Luis bridge + porto

soooo dang excited to be in porto!

headed into Nick's fave place....drinking port wine!

moldy moldness in the cellar

awesome port tasting!!

ate these entire things before i realized i was only supposed to eat the shells....oops

church at the bottom of clerigos tower

Clerigos Tower!

gorgeous gorgeous view from Clerigos Tower

francesinha!!

porto tonic

just a cat in a bar......

train station in porto

On Sunday, Nick and I woke up to the gorgeous view you see in the first picture below. We slept in a bit because we'd been doing some crazy traveling for a 9 days straight and just needed a bit of a break. Then we grabbed a bite to eat at this awesome burger place called Bugo Art Burgers. We then headed down to the water and got on a boat to do a boat cruise of the six bridges of Porto. We used a company called Duoro River Cruise. The river and the surrounding banks are just absolutely gorgeous!! We then had to eat a pastel de nata...the yummy custard pastry from Porto. Nick was absolutely obsessed! I am not the biggest custard fan but he definitely loved it and it was pretty yummy. We then headed out to the beach to watch the sunset and snap some pretty pictures of Porto. We really really loved Porto and I am about dying to go back. I seriously cannot wait to go back there. I would highly highly recommend this place to anyone traveling Europe. It is is true gem!

waking up to this view...

train station! awesome cool tile

nick got a little caught up in his croakies

down by the port...

nick by the water.. enjoying the view...

another porto tonic!

some random people dancing next to the water

squinting real good in the beautiful sun with the glasses

view from the boat!

checking out Porto from the boat

porto <3

checking out porto!

gorgeous!!!

i love porto!

i.am.literally.obsessed.

pasteis de nata <3

headed to the beach on the trolley

da beach

beautiful views from the beaches

hanging with my man in the beaches next to Porto

gawgeous sunset <3

On Monday morning we headed to Lisbon, bright & early! On the plane, we met another Johnson from the US and it was so cool! It was great to meet a fellow American and I enjoyed speaking with her for a while. When we got to Lisbon we headed to our hotel (which was kind of like a condo type deal) and dropped our stuff off. We then went and met up with a Sandeman's tour (shocking right!), I know you guys are realllll surprised we went to do this tour. The tour was great and we learned a lot about Lisbon right off the bat. We went for a nice walk around the Bairro Alto district and snapped some great views! We then went to Timeout Market. This hugeeeee market was very cool and had a nice bite to eat and drink. In the evening we went to grab a Portuguese meal and to see Fado. Fado is the traditional folk music of Lisbon. This show was absolutely unreal. We went to a place called Mesa de Frades. The food was also quite good but the singers were just phenomenal. There was this man that was turning 96 in a few days playing bass. Such a nice, cheery man. I was just astounded by the authenticity of the music and the raw emotion that was seeping throughout the entire room. If you head to Lisbon you must go here.

cereal store!

yummy portuguese food

timeout market!

the local spot for Fado

my 96 year old pal playing the bass

On Tuesday morning we headed to Sintra. It is a city right outside of Lisbon closer to the coast. I knew instantly I was going to absolutely love this little town. The first stop was Castle of the Moors. This place was so cool. The layout of the castle was so interesting. I took so many pictures so bear with me as you look down below. We traipsed all over the place and checked out all the nooks and crannies. The castle place all over this hill side with many stairs and great views. After we finished up at the moorish castle, we then headed up to the Pena Palace at the very top of Sintra. This was by far the funkiest, craziest, wackiest castle I have EVER seen. It was simply breathe-taking. The grounds were also so well laid out. We walked around for awhile and then headed up to the very top of the hill and got an amazing view of the palace. After this palace, we headed back down to the main part of town. We checked out the traditional drink of Lisbon, Ginjinha. This drink is so interesting. It's a liqueur made with berries. We wrapped up our day in Sintra by checking out the National Palace of Sintra. This palace was not nearly as grand as the other two but was still gorgeous and we really enjoyed our time checking it out. After we headed out Nick frantically realized he had lost one of the photo cards for his camera. He was freaking out (well honestly that is an understatement). By the luck of God, we went back up to the palace and the staff had found it. All was good again!!! For dinner we grabbed some awesome Peruvian food at this place called Qosqo. The food was absolutely amazing!! Yet again, another amazing place to check out if you are in Lisbon.

nick checking out the moorish castle

castle of the moors!

palace of pena!

insane detail

the tile work is outta this world

prancing like a queen on my throne

the funkiest palace there ever was!

Ginjinha - the local drink

details in the pena palace

some peruvian food

peruvian food!

The next day we headed to Belem which is a smaller town outside of Lisbon. Nick went early to take some pictures then I headed down and met him at Pasteis de Belem which is the famous pastry place. We ate more pastel de nata. We then walked around and caught this gorgeous rainbow on the fountain in central Belem. Afterwards, we went into Jerónimos Monastery. We spent quite a long time at this place. It was very interesting and it was so neat to just walk around see the interesting architecture and views and the cathedral within. We then had to go grab some gelato, yum! And we headed to Belem Tower. The tower was an old structure that we climbed to the top of for a nice view out onto the water and bridge. I then had to stick my toes in the brackish water of the Atlantic ocean. Once we spent some time in the water, we were ready to eat some yummy lunch. We headed to Enoteca de Belem. I had some phenomenal steak. And some vegetable soup! After we finished our time at Belem, we just walked around a bit more and then headed back to our place we were staying at. We grabbed some brews at a great craft beer place. Then... we went to the.best.mexican.restaurant.in.europe. Quite legitimately. Guys... this was straight up the best mexican in Europe. Can I go back to Lisbon please just for this?? :)!!! The place was called Pistola y Corazon Taqueria. It is straight up Mexican & we had the spiciest tacos in the world. Out of this world! If you ever go to Lisbon, you need to go straight to this place and devour every piece of food you can. Portugal was great. I cannot wait to head back and check out the southern part and the beaches. This is definitely on my top list of places to re-visit and to see the rest of this gorgeous country.