With the gradual easing of Covid restrictions, some of the traditional festivals and parties are returning to Portugal. We have missed them for the past two years. First up: Festa de Carnaval dos Caretos de Podence. In the hilly and Read more…

Still making up for lost time, we decided to take another two-week trip with friends. We traveled to Slovenia & Croatia with a day-trip into Montenegro  and a necessary crossing through Bosnia & Herzegovina. When living in the states, a Read more…

The Açores Islands. Our trip twice postponed thanks to covid. These nine islands in the Atlantic, each unique, make up an autonomous region of Portugal. We took a 2-hour direct flight from Porto to São Miguel Island (the largest and Read more…

The weather has been pretty great this month so we are spending time out and about in Matosinhos and Porto. Tourists have returned to the city and it is good to see businesses thriving again. Below are just some random Read more…

Among the many reasons that we chose to retire to Portugal was to have have easy and affordable travel options throughout Europe. We imagined frequent short flights to big and small destinations. Then, two and a half years of living Read more…

Covid has been a wild roller coaster ride for over 16 months now. Portugal has experienced numbers on both ends of the spectrum. Right now, the case numbers are rapidly climbing again in spite of the aggressive vaccination rate. Restrictions Read more…

On May 3 we reached stage 4 of the national deconfinement plan in Portugal. Restaurants started serving indoors although still with table and capacity restrictions. All schools, shops, and malls reopened. While still not back to “normal”, it finally felt Read more…

Covid restrictions eased up enough to allow us to take our first road trip on April 15 after 3 months of lock-down. We rented a car and tested the waters by taking a 5-day trip north along our border with Read more…

They say ¨There’s a light at the end of the Covid tunnel.¨ I say, maybe, but that tunnel is deceptively long, twisty, and full of scary clowns just waiting to leap out from the dark corners. After four days of Read more…

I’d like to say that the holidays passed pleasantly, but that just was not the case. The government of Portugal cratered under the pressure to “save Christmas” in this very Catholic country. They relaxed the restrictions just for the week Read more…