Where to go, and when · with the homework done
THE DOURO VALLEY · NORTHERN PORTUGAL · PINHÃO · 41.2° N The Douro was demarcated for wine before any other region on earth, a date our Portugal guide keeps on hand. What that history looks like on the ground is a river running low between steep schist slopes, vineyard terraces stacked up the sun-facing sides, … Read more
PORTO AND THE NORTH · PORTUGAL’S GRANITE NORTHWEST · THE MINHO · TRÁS-OS-MONTES · THE COAST Portugal’s north is the country’s other half: granite instead of limestone, terraced vines instead of dune grass, and an Atlantic that stays cold in August. Rain made it what it is. The Minho’s hills are green the way Ireland … Read more
PORTUGAL · HONEYMOON · THE COUPLE’S FILE A honeymoon here runs on small ceremonies rather than grand ones. A tiled terrace above Lisbon at the hour the river goes copper. A table for two under vine leaves in the Douro, with the wine that grew outside the window. A road across the Alentejo where the … Read more
LISBON · KNOW BEFORE YOU GO · TEN LESSONS FROM THE HILLS The Lisbon in your camera roll is flat. The one under your shoes is a stack of ramps, staircases and polished stone, and almost every first-visit mistake traces back to that gap. These are the corrections our desks collected the tiring way: which … Read more
PORTUGAL · KNOW BEFORE YOU GO · TEN LESSONS FROM OUR FIRST TRIPS The rules of a Portugal trip live on other pages of this site. This one collects the things that aren’t rules at all: the small local logic that our desks worked out slowly, over a first dinner that cost more than the … Read more
PORTUGAL · DECEMBER · THE FESTIVE MONTH, REGION BY REGION December hands Portugal over to its cities. Lisbon runs 58°F afternoons and about nine wet days, Porto collects 170 mm of Atlantic rain, and the Algarve sits at a mild 61°F with a 61°F sea that nobody swims in. Nationally the country is down to … Read more
