Well, I can’t speak for the city, but a drive (or even a boat ride) up the Douro Valley in the fall when the wine grapes are ripe is spectacular. There is a Portuguese saying: Porto prays, Lisbon plays.
Wine meccas almost always have superior dining options.
Discovering the treasure that are Portuguese red wines was a happy thing for us. Fabulous wines right off the grocery shelf for just a few bucks. The problem was always in finding another bottle from the same vintner. Production levels were very small, and Portugal doesn’t export their best products (or didn’t). When we left there, we included 15 cases of red in our shipment.
For reference there @Chefguy, when roughly were you two stationed there?
Places you (me really) knew well 40 years ago are almost unrecognizable now.
So very much this. There was so much left after Franco that still lingered on. And I don’t mean politics. Franco made sure everyone had a job. A dictator doesn’t like idle hands. That meant a lot of invented jobs, lots and lots of unnecessary bureaucracy and redundant redundancies of redundance. The Spain I moved to, where a little old man would slowly come out to fill your car at the gas station is gone. To get a landline, in a city, could take six months. Small villages had a community phone. The impressive air terminal building in Málaga, built in '92 to handle traffic for the Expo in Seville, has already been replaced. Huge swathes of land that were empty are now completely urbanized.
Spain in 2025 feels very modern. In 1990 it felt as if it was 20-50 years behind the rest of the EU.
I was unimpressed by Lisbon, just another large European city.
But once we got out of Lisbon, Portugal is so beautiful. From what you describe as you like I’m sure you’ll love it.
'93-'94. Now I have to write more or my post won’t be accepted.
It was the same with Portugal and Salazar. He styled himself as a ‘father’ and his people as ‘children’. He didn’t allow any outside influences and Portugal stagnated for many years. Even in the 90s, it seemed like people were still 30 years behind the times. And then there was/is the whole saudade mentality of longing for the past.
I definitely want to take the roads closest to the oceans rather than the expressway. I’m in no rush, I want to stop by random beaches and whatever strikes my fancy. Are you recommending against that?
My current plan is to rent a car in barcelona and drop it off in Seville, staying within Spain incurs a modest drop-off fee. Then from Seville I can take either the bus to Faro or the train to Lisbon or Porto. It’s really annoying that there’s no Seville to Faro train link - it seems like it’d be a great spot for one. You have to take a massive train loop to go from southern Spain to southern Portugal. Then I’d rent another car in portugal – probably either take the train to Porto and work my way down, or the bus to Faro and work my way up.
So my plans changed a little bit. I booked the cruise that let off in London and I got a weather delay and couldn’t make it to the ship in time. So I booked another cruise a little later that’s pretty similar in route but lets out in Rotterdam instead of London. Either way, I was thinking I’d fly to Madrid, spend a couple of days there, take the train to Barcelona, and then rent a car there.
I had dinner with a well travelled couple tonight who told me Cadiz was kind of a “Spanish hippy surfer town” and to be honest I think that would be a pretty awesome vibe. Originally I was going to skip Cadiz by going to Seville East of Gibraltary, but now I’m thinking I may go to Cadiz first. Any opinions?
I might also do the ferry from Gibraritar over to Tangier.
On my visit to Morocco 15 years ago, we gave Tangier a miss because it had the reputation of being the “Tijuana of Africa”. That may have changed but, no doubt, it is probably still very touristy.
I haven’t been but have heard great things about Cadiz, including from a very cool Barcelonian friend.
I landed in Rotterdam today and it’s way cooler than I expected. I guess I’m not sure what I expected. There’s so much mass transit, more bikes than cars, very cool city layout, very good looking. It’s very cohesive probably on account of being destroyed in ww2. In England everything is a random mix across the centuries which is a different kind of interesting.
Way more food diversity than I expected. Possibly more than Vegas which is saying a lot.
Got ripped off by a cab driver a little bit, I gotta be more assertive (had a huge line behind me at the cab line at the port and he wanted $50 for 4km and I stupidly just went with it.
It’s King’s Day here so a big party in certain districts. I’m going to hop on one of the trams and stop somewhere that looks like it’s having fun.
Amsterdam is even cooler. The city center is way more pedestrian friendly and just generally a fun place to hang out than any American city I’ve ever been to.
I originally thought the Netherlands were going to be a little road bump on my way to the Iberian peninsula since my ship dropped off here but the 3 days I’ve spent here have been among my favorite travel days.
It completely changed my mind on using public transit. I’m pro public transit of course but in practice I’ll only use it in specific circumstances. It’s too much of a hassle to use regularly. But that’s from a lifetime of experience with shitty American transit. It’s incredibly better here and I’d be happy to use it all the time.
FYI, there is a nationwide power cut in Spain right now, also affecting Portugal and southern France. Any travel plans in the next couple of days may disrupted, and this will likely generally test your ability to display adaptability.
Well thanks for the heads up. I was just informed my flight was delayed due to delays at Madrid airport. I wonder if they’re going to do that airlines bullshit where they’re going to be delayed 10 hours but they keep telling you 15 more minutes 40 times.
Nationwide power cuts… How often does that happen there? Guess I’m going to be reading about it
I agree, the trams in Amsterdam are great - we used them all the time when we visited. And the bike infrastructure is amazing as well.
This is a first, freak event. A lot of people working hard to understand how exactly: this is from Portugal, yet to be confirmed by Spain:
We have a bit more for you now from the Portuguese energy company REN (Rede Eletrica Nacional).
It says that “due to extreme temperature variations in the interior or Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’”.
“These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
Spain saying it could take a week to fully restore the network to normal operation.
So I’m not going to fly into Spain, I’m going to stay in Amsterdam to see how this shakes out. But I checked my luggage right before I got this news (thank you @Stanislaus) and they’re trying to figure out how to get my bag back. Without it I’m in trouble, it has all my clothes. In theory they can route it back here but in this chaos who knows what might happen
Smart call. Hopefully there’s not much chance of a plane flying off with your luggage as it sounds like there’s hardly any air traffic into Spain right now.
If you’re able, check where your airplane originated from (the route it’s flying from to get to the airport you’re at). Then see if it has taken off or not. If it has taken off, the estimates are fairly accurate. If it has not taken off, the estimates are generally meaningless as you describe.
Good luck!