We were so excited to go back to Portugal before leaving Europe, and thankfully it was as awesome as we had remembered.
June 2nd: After saying goodbye to Heidelberg, we took a bus from the train station to the hotel we always stay at near the Frankfurt-Hahn airport. That night, we watched USA play Germany in a friendly in D.C.
June 3rd: We were up at 4:15am to make it the airport for our early morning flight to Faro. Nathan and I had decided to check one bag, shared between us. Bad idea. Turned out it was over the weight limit and RyanAir charges an arm and a leg for that kind of thing. When we made it into Faro, we took a bus to the train station, then a train to the town of Portimao. We then had to take a taxi out to our hotel. The place was seriously secluded. The last part of the taxi ride involved driving down what's supposed to be a two-lane road, but only actually fits one car at a time. Plus, it's ridiculously winding. Oh, and did I mention there are long stretches of rock wall on either side? It's basically a death trap. After checking into our hotel, which was super swanky, we ate lunch at the hotel's restaurant and then hit the nearby beach, which was a five minute walk away. After spending some time on the beach, we headed to the hotel infinity pool. We ate at the restaurant again for dinner since, ya know, our hotel is seriously secluded. The menu was very posh and the chef even gave us complimentary tiny plates of octopus, with all kinds of garnish. I couldn't even look at mine. Tentacles... Nathan tried it and said it wasn't too bad.
above & below: Portimao
our hotel
our room
the beginning of our walk down to the beach
cafe and stairs leading down to the sand
It's so beautiful!
drinks by the infinity pool
June 4th: We unknowingly hired a car service to get to Albufeira in trying to get a taxi. We learned from our driver that Luis Figo, a famous Portuguese soccer player who is now retired, owns our hotel. We ate lunch downtown, I finally bought a Portugal jersey (had to get a boys' size because there were no women's), and then Claire from Quad Ventura picked us up from the train station for our ATV tour. This was our second time and Rory did another fantastic job guiding us through the countryside and quaint towns. Afterwards, we walked the beach of Albufeira and had dinner downtown before taking the car service back to our hotel.
above & below: Albufeira
where I bought my jersey : )
above, below & following: Quad Ventura
Nathan photographed while I drove.
We took a picture in this exact same spot last time, except Nathan was in the driver seat.
above & below: covered in red dirt from the ride
June 5th: We enjoyed sleeping in, Nathan did some therapy in the gym, we ate lunch at our hotel and then laid out by the pool a little. After, we walked about 20 minutes along the cliff-tops to Praia Marinha, which has been voted one of the top 10 beaches in Europe. It was gorgeous! I swam in the Atlanitc Ocean for the first time. Nathan's done it at least twice - in Santorini and when we visited Portugal the first time - but the water is waaay too cold for me. I forced myself to get in this time since it could be my last chance, but I didn't stay in very long. Afterwards, we were looking forward to warming up in the hot tub at our hotel, but that didn't turn out like we were hoping. First, we were required to purchase and wear swim caps to use the hot tub. We took pictures of us in them, but those will not be publicized. Ever. To anyone. We were laughing so hard at how dorky we looked in them. Then, the hot tub was more of a "slightly warm" tub. Add to the mix that there was a wild preschooler in the adjacent pool, and it was a little disappointing. After showering and relaxing in our room, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant. This time, though, no compliments-of-the-chef-octopus : ) Instead, chicken. And it was yummy.
above & below: walking along the cliff-tops
view down onto Praia Marinha
me in the Atlantic!
a deserted beach along our walk back
June 6th: We hired the car service again, since it was comparable to calling a taxi, and left our hotel for Portimao. We had intended to eat lunch at a restaurant before catching a bus to Lisbon, but ended up having to get our order to go. Our waiter allowed us to take a set of silverware to eat with on the bus, as long as we "didn't let his boss see." We chilled in our hotel in Lisbon a little bit before heading into the city for dinner. We took a suggestion from TripAdvisor and ended up at Casanova Pizza. Oh.my.goodness. Talk about yum! We had two whole pizzas each and shared a delicious bottle of Lambrusco AND ordered dessert. Gelato for Nathan and Tiramisu for me.
June 7th: Tom, the guy who owns the soccer website Nathan writes for, met us at our hotel, and then the three of us went by his office and ate lunch together. He and Nathan talked soccer the entire time. They're collaborating on a book on Portuguese football at the moment, so there was a lot of talk of that as well. Afterwards, we left Tom and went down to the harbor. We picked up a cream tart from Pasteis de Belem, a traditional Portuguese sweet, and ate it with coffee at Starbucks. Being right on the harbor turned out to be super windy and therefore not a good place to hang out, like I had hoped. So we grabbed a bus out to the aquarium to kill time before eating dinner at Casanova again (yes, it was THAT good) and then taking a taxi back to Tom's office. We walked with him over to the stadium to watch Portugal play Russia in a World Cup-qualifying match. They beat Russia 1-0 and the game was really exciting. After the game was over, we waited outside the stadium for Tom to finish up being in the Mixed Zone (where players are interviewed prior to boarding the bus) and then he dropped us off at the train station. We caught the last bus to Faro, which happened to have the noisiest travelers (hello, it's 3am, go to sleep!) and the most reckless bus driver (seriously terrifying!).
us with Tom in front of Estadio de Luz
Ronaldo
Patricio
above & below: Portugal's fans
June 8th: We slept a little in the airport and then caught our flight back to Hahn. We took a bus from Hahn to Frankfurt and showered/napped in our hotel room 5 minutes away from Frankfurt International. Mark and Janesse drove up to bring us the rest of our luggage and then we ate dinner with them at Adolf Wagner. Delicious food. Cool atmosphere. We stopped for some gelato before they dropped us off at our hotel.
Portugal warming up
Russia warming up
Russia's fans
opening ceremony
June 9th: After taking the shuttle at 7:30am to the airport, we waited for an hour at the check-in counter. First, they were having system issues. Then, they were unable to find our reservation. The lady was so nice though and finally found a way for us to get our boarding passes from United, where our connecting flight in the States was booked. After boarding our double-decker plane, they announced our flight was going to be delayed due to weather. Ugh. It was drizzling. We thought we might be grounded forever since it's constantly drizzling in Germany. We took off an hour late, but arrived in Houston on time. Then, our flight from Houston to San Antonio was delayed by an hour due to weather. This story to be continued...
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