Porto, Nazare, Sintra & Lisbon in 5 days. Part I

My colleague and I planned on coming a few days early before our company’s conference so we can take advantage of our trip and fit in a bit of sightseeing, as much as we could at least. I left my Red Dragon 6k camera at home so as soon as we landed we had to go and find a local video production rental store so that we can secure all the gear we would need for our conference in order to record our customer success video stories. We use these stories to educate and train our people.

Lisbon, Portugal

Once we got that out of the way we, we took a train to Porto, which took us about 3 ½ (I highly recommend you take the express train instead) or rent a car.

Porto, Lisbon

Once we checked in, we got ready and went around the corner to try out their cultured food. For 16 euros we had two entrée dishes, 4 glasses of wine and appetizers. Back home in San Francisco this would’ve cost us close to $100 if not more. We were eating dinner at 10pm, and if you believe this is late, well yes of course, but in their country people actually go out to dinner at this time.

After dinner we went back to the hostel and went out with a few people and one of the local workers showed us around. We first went to a bar and then around 1pm everyone literally at the same time, leaves the bars and goes to the clubs. `

The next morning, we woke up to join a group walking tour around the city. I loved walking through these streets, the turns and twists on these narrow streets is beautiful, always excited to see interesting architecture around the corner.

Porto, Lisbon

While walking I noticed about ten people sitting down and painting a picture through a narrow street of a house.

At every turn I see beautiful architecture, a photo to be taken...

But not everyone is happy to see you…

On flower street is, you see all types of art which reminded me of the Haight district in San Francisco minus the smell of homeless.

The amount of art you run into is awesome!

Even a little performance!

Maybe some drawings?

We left the group during the lunch break because we wanted to spend the rest of the day exploring for ourselves so we decided to have lunch right at the port of Porto.

The Maria Pia Bridge was designed by Gustave Eiffel in 1877 who also overseed the construction of his famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. We ate lunch to the left of this image, were we also enjoyed live street performers.

Maria Pia Bridge

After lunch we rented an automatic smart vehicle which is all they had left. For those that don’t know, most the country drives stick. We rented at the airport from a company called sixt because we wanted to do some of our own exploring while driving on the highway instead of taking the 3 ½ hr train ride. Just like that, within a day and a half, we left the beautiful streets of Porto.

Narrow street near the Maria Pia Bridge

We hit the road and arrived at a small beach town called Nazaré, which really reminds me of Santa Cruz, California. Nazaré is located along the Atlantic coast and is considered as one of the best beach towns in Portugal.

Above photo is taken from an old village on top of a cliff called Sítio. From the location of this image, if you walk to you right and down a curvy road you start to approach a light house, if you go around the light to a sign that says dangerous stay out, there is a man built staircase that fisherman use daily, kind of sketchy but I guess all the fisherman do it, so I had to, after all I scaled to the top of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco before it was torn down (you will see a post for this ;) )

On October 28, 2013, Brazilian Carlos Burle surfed a wave that is currently being scrutinized as possibly the largest wave ever ridden, rumored but not exactly measured to be around 100ft.

Here is another "BIRDS EYE" view of Nazaré.

Nazaré, Portugal

The sunset from the beach looking towards Sítio was nothing less than spectacular...

After the sunset, we settled into a hotel and the next morning hit the road to Sintra to sync up with our other coworker. We first ate lunch at Resturant Piscina Azenhas do Mar which is right on the cliffs of the beach. Beautiful views

Sintra, Portugal

After lunch we drove to go see the beautiful castles in Sintra.

Unfortunately it seems as I hit the cap limit to my post so I will follow up with a Part II tomorrow and the above image seems to serve as a great transition into Part II of my journey with beautiful castles and tunnels from Castelo dos Mouros and Quinta da Regaleira and then continued into Lisbon...

If you have traveled to any of these places or will be in the near future then don't hesitate to ask any questions I will try to answer to the best of my ability, or just simply share what you enjoyed would love to hear, thanks.