economie

I visited Portugal for the first time. I had a great vacation, but these 3 things would’ve made my trip even better.

October 4, 20240
After our first night in Porto, we started making lunch and dinner reservations at breakfast.

Rebecca Strassberg

Despite staying right outside the Ribeira and Baixa neighborhoods, where restaurant choices abound, we still found dinner reservations difficult to come by if we waited too long.

On our first night in Porto, we gave up a reservation at The Door, a trendy tapas spot. But we didn’t realize that the restaurant would be booked for the rest of our time in the city.

We settled for wherever would feed us at 9 p.m. and eventually started making lunch and dinner reservations over breakfast.

Staying in a more central part of Lagos would’ve made that leg of the trip more relaxing.
I wish I had made time to visit Capela dos Ossos.

saiko3p/Shutterstock

It can feel intimidating to dedicate an entire day to just one thing, specifically on a multicity trip. However, I wish I’d prioritized the things that make Portugal, Portugal.

For example, I’ve wanted to visit Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones) in Évora for years. It was only an hour and a half drive from Lisbon, but we didn’t end up going.

And even though Porto is world-famous for its production of port (fortified Portuguese wine), we skipped a day trip to the Douro Valley. Although we drank port and toured a few distilleries in the city itself, an excursion would have cemented that leg of the trip.

After all, at the end of the day, a short car ride is nothing compared to an eight-hour flight.