Šibenik, about halfway between Split and Zadar, has a visibly lower profile than other great towns on the Dalmatian Coast. That standing is probably reasonable: the town offers a single unmissable point of interest, and then a picturesque hillside old quarter that does not take long to get a fill…
While in Croatia, we technically only explored sights on the Dalmatian Coast. This historic region today encompasses counties with seats in Split, Dubrovnik, Šibenik, and Zadar, all of which featured on our itinerary. The latter is the northernmost of great Dalmatian towns. Wait a second!, says an attentive follower of…
For the first part of our adventure in Croatia we were based in Split. We budgeted only a single day for exploring the town, but we also returned to the city core every evening for 5 nights, so by the end of that stay we could plausibly claim a pretty…
I have now come to the end of my photo-material from the spring trip to Portugal. For those interested, over 600 photos from the trip have been uploaded to my Flickr galleries. Central Portugal (Coimbra, Alcobaça, Batalha, Tomar, Évora) Northern Portugal (Douro Valley, Guimarães, Bom Jesus do Monte, Amarante, Aveiro)…
As my Portugal photo-essay series over the last couple of months clearly shows, our traveling targets in the country were heavily aligned with my well-publicized pursuit of the World Heritage. And yet, practically all of the places that we visited would likely feature – or at least be considered as…
Sintra is one of the most impressive and attractive places to visit in all of Portugal. It is also one of the most maddeningly overcrowded. We were there in late April; boarding the local bus to drive up to the higher-situated sights, navigating the sole road that leads to those…
The trip almost did not happen at the very last moment. We were waiting for boarding our outbound flight only to be told that it was cancelled due to mechanical problems. Three hours standing in ticketing line later, the best we could do was to rebook ourselves on a really…
Not many people would use “love” and “Lisbon” in the same sentence. Ask anyone who toured Portugal to name their favorite stops, and it is highly unlikely that the capital of the country will feature even among the top five. This lukewarm impression is not entirely unfounded. Lisbon is visually…
We started our exploration of Lisbon with a morning trip to Belém to take a look at the World Heritage site that consists of a monastery and a commemorative harbor watchtower. Together, this complex is recognized as representation of Portuguese power during the Age of Discoveries. Here is the perspective…
The third point of the Portuguese World Heritage monastic triangle, along with Alcobaça and Batalha, is the Convent of Christ in Tomar. The oldest of the three, it has been built and improved upon for several centuries; the variety of the styles in its construction came to symbolize the opening…
Our drive from Porto to Lisbon started with the rain-out in Aveiro. We had two more sightseeing stops along the way, and unfortunately we kept dragging the rain behind us everywhere we went. Thankfully, the moments of downpour alternated with periods of calm and blue skies, and in Batalha we…
Just as in Amarante, our visit to Aveiro was negatively affected by the weather, only in a more dramatic fashion. We arrived in town on a beautiful spring sunny morning, shortly after starting our exploration decided to stop by for coffee at one of the local establishments, and emerged from…
The first capital of Portugal way back in the 12th century, Guimarães is recognized on the World Heritage list as an authentic example of the evolution of a medieval settlement into a modern town. Its historic center is a homogeneous architectural ensemble in a style that is native to the…
The city of Braga did not make the final cut of our Portugal itinerary aside from one single sight on the outskirts of the town. The sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte is comparatively young for a religious site – the pilgrimage church dates only from the 17th century, and…
The village of Amarante was planned as the end-of-day stop on the return to Porto from Douro Valley – it is conveniently located along the way. Unfortunately, the weather – which was fairly benevolent to us in the first few days of our trip – picked the moment of our…
There are several properties on the World Heritage list that celebrate historic and famous wine-producing regions. My fairly well-known affinity for wine notwithstanding, I have never managed a visit to one of those sites that would actually revolve around wine. Which made our day-trip to Alto Douro the first of…
The very first adjective to use to describe Porto has to be colorful. Yes, the city has a lot of history and quite a few significant monuments and points of interest – which is the main reason why it as a whole is a World Heritage site – but it’s…
Coimbra is the fourth-largest city in Portugal, and its former capital for a bit over a century quite a few centuries ago. As any city over a thousand years old, it is not without charms, but on balance it falls short of making an exceptional impression. It is nice, but…
Our itinerary in Portugal was structured around two “hub-and-spokes” legs in Porto and Lisbon. There are roughly 300 kilometers of driving from one to another, with quite a few interesting sights in between. Seeing more than a couple of them requires more than one day. One solution to that would…
As is always the case on our family travels, should you have been following my lovely wife on social media you would have known by now that we spent a glorious week-plus in Portugal. It was our first trip to the country, so we tried to reasonably cover as many…