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Posted on by Rick Steves

Portugal: In Cod We Trust

My 12 days in Portugal are over. Except for the Douro Valley and the Algarve, I visited virtually everything in my Portugal guidebook and leave with my enthusiasm for this country rekindled.

I met few Americans (in one day in Athens, where I am today, I saw more of us than in 12 days in Portugal) and found great prices ($5 meals, $60 doubles, $6 tickets to major sights — even with the euro at $1.60).

Side-tripping 45 minutes from Lisbon, I went to plush and lush Sintra. Its Pena Palace, built by a romantic blue-blooded cousin of Mad King Ludwig, sits like a mountain-top Neuschwanstein with an Atlantic view. The elegantly cluttered rooms at the Pena Palace are still set up as they were in 1910 when the king fled — a great example of that Victorian “horror of empty spaces.”

My last day of research was complicated by a walking tour. I intended to check it out by just tagging along for half an hour. It was so good, I stayed the entire 3.5 hours. They called it an intro tour, but after 20 years of visits, I just couldn’t leave. Titled “Lisbon Revelation” and run by a company called Lisbon Walker, there were five in our group. We paid €13 each ($20) and the guide had us enthralled for every minute as we walked and took the trolley through the old town. (That evening I emailed my tour operations director and said, “Let’s get this experience for our Portugal groups!”)

George Bush got some ridicule when he looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and, “saw his soul.” This is one rare case where I can relate to our president. I need to look into the eyes of the business people I meet and determine whether I can say, “I trust this person” to my traveling readers.

Perhaps I’m easily impressed (or conned), but I looked into many eyes on this trip and saw the souls of many good people: Sergio who rents ocean view “quartos” above his little bakery/café (simple doubles for $50) in Nazare; Carlos whose cataplana is famous in Porto and whom I’d like my readers to simply trust to feed well and charge honestly; and Gabriel who lovingly serves up traditional dishes in his restaurant while employing fado — Portuguese folk — guitarists who look like tired old turtles, and singers who are ringers for how Morticia (of the Addams family) must look today. (Gabriel’s business takes a big hit from cabbies who tell diners he’s out of business because he doesn’t pay commissions.)

In my hotel rounds, I noticed one of the personalized schedules our tour guides post on the wall for tour members. It laid out the plan for the last day of one of our two-week Spain and Portugal tours. The guide (Federico) had written, “Meet at 7:30 in the lobby to go out for dinner and a big surprise.”

I dropped back at 7:30 and doubled the surprise. I love seeing groups full of smiles after two weeks together. And for some reason Federico always leaves me with a huge smile. Their other surprise — heading out for Gabriel’s restaurant to enjoy the Turtles and Morticia.

I wonder if Lisbon and San Francisco are sister cities — they have twin bridges, famously foggy weather, have survived horrific earthquakes, keep trolleys shivering up and down their steep hills past characteristic buildings, and are situated in about the best natural harbors on the west coast of their respective continents.

Portugal has a poignant souvenir of its colonial days (which ended its nearly 50-year dictatorship — the longest in 20th century Europe — in 1974 with its Carnation Revolution). Over a million Portuguese “returnees” fled the colonies they no longer ruled. Life for them was “shrimp, day and night” and suddenly they were without a homeland — it was too dangerous to stay in the newly independent lands they once dominated…but they were too sour and conservative to feel comfortable back in Portugal. Most ended up emigrating to Brazil, England, the US, or France.

(I wonder if many became builders. A French man I befriended said it is the exception when a small construction or remodel job done in France is not done by a Portuguese contractor.)

I leave Portugal with a taste for Bacalhau — cod. My favorite bar munchie is a fried potato/cod croquet called a pastel de bacalhau. Imagine, the national dish of Portugal is cod and it’s never fresh — only salty and imported from Norway. This — a national dish that is imported from far away — must be unique in the world. Like Portugal itself.

Comments

25 Replies to “Portugal: In Cod We Trust”

  1. That blog entry reads more like a page out of a tattered travel novel. Well done. The Bush comment was great, I know what you mean. You have to meet your business partners face to face and it makes all the difference in the world. Maybe we should do that more when we travel and this blog will help pop those tourist bubbles folks tends to envelope themselves in.

  2. I live in a town with many first and second generation Portugese. I have seen many photos and heard much about this country. I have not done a Rick Steve’s tour yet, however, I plan too and I think it will be Spain and Portugal…I have been to Spain and loved it, however, never to Portugal….after reading your posts, I want to go….Now a few questions on Athens…will you be taping in the New Acropolis Museum and I understand that they are revamping Monastiraki Square….I am wondering has the renovations to the square been completed? Enjoy your travels, and as always thanks for sharing your travel experiences….

  3. Rick, I certainly agree with your San Francisco/Lisbon comparison, you are the only one besides me, who has said that, as far as I know. Here is a comment I wrote about Frisco. ======= Block after block of row-houses rise and fall over the never-ending hills, and sometimes it looks like giant centipedes are eating the whole scene. ======= I was happy to hear about the one million Portuguese “returnees” in 1974. The following is what we wrote in our Journal in 1979, but I have been unable to confirm it since then, and have often wondered if it was really true. Our Journal says, ======== Lisbon, Portugal, was basically a beautiful city, but we found it cluttered with trash on the streets, graffiti on the buildings, and poverty all around. A young couple we met in a campground told us that many things, including the cleanliness of the towns, became much worse a few years earlier when some Portuguese colony was lost in Africa, and a million people had to move to Portugal. Many of these people had never lived in a regular building, and most of them lacked job skills. They said we must be very careful of the Portuguese drivers, especially the taxi drivers. We spent an hour in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel, just to get over the culture shock.

  4. We have a friend and his family is from Portugal and they go and live the life every other year and just love it. With travel prices the way they are it may be the next “Italy” experience. We better get there before it catches on and gets crazy! I think it is great when you recheck your guidebooks yourself. I don’t think anyone out there can look at travel the way you do Rick! Thanks!

  7. Rick this is kind of off topic but relevant to your travels. I am reading that a number of european cities are switching back over to coal from Oil for power sources and coal is much dirtier than oil or nuclear power. How is europe squaring this up with pushing the Kyoto agenda. Second since you are straight shooter, i have looked at the bookings on your tours and it looks like they are way down from last year-is this true and is this impacting your business plan for the year.

  10. Helen- Interesting Article. It could be taken as anti-travel, but I took it as a challenge to experience different places more authentically. As someone who has made a commitment to show my children the world outside suburbia I would never consider staying home an option:) Rick-like several others have said, Portugal was never on my radar but it’s sounding better and better. By the way I am making my way through a copy of “Europe 101” you signed for us last spring. It’s really fascinating! I find myself saying “Oh so that’s the reason to see such and such chapel or museum.” Great perspective.

  12. Lighten up, people. The article in the International Herald Tribune was satire. Doesn’t anyone out there have a sense of humor?

  14. I think Joe’s wrong, that article isn’t satire! Why would he think that? I agree with the author … it’s so expensive these days, it’s exhausting, and stressful. Although 20 years ago I never would have felt that way. The last two times I went to France I barely even wanted to go when it was time to go to the airport. I think alot of it is age. I’m glad I went, but when I got home I thought, “I’m not going anywhere else for a very very long time” :)

  15. That must have been such a fun surprise at the end of their tour, to meet you, Rick! Are you planning to ever take one of your own tours with your family again, as you did on an Italy tour a few years ago? My daughter and I were all signed up for that one, then had to cancel. We thought it would be fun to go on a tour you were on … any future plans for that? Thanks for writing the blog, it’s so interesting!

  16. Rick, We were two of the lucky tour members who you surprised in Lisbon. Yes, it was quite a surprise and wonderful to meet you. Thank you for taking time out from your busy schedule to stop by to meet us,to check out the hotel and to give us another Wow moment on our tour. Happy Travels.

  17. We were in Lisbon on a Holland America Rotterdam VI cruise late last August. Experienced fog so thick I couldn’t get a decent picture of the Belem Tower; say to twin to San Franscico’s bridge; visited the Henry the Navigator monument and the Jeronomus Monastary. Delightful town, worth a return trip and a couple of days sometime in the future. Portuguese cod fishing fleets used to bring home tons of cod from the Grand Banks, back when their fishing boats were sailing ships. Perhaps that’s when their national dish of fried potato/cod croquets became popular.

  18. Just read your article, which was sent to me by my Portuguese cousin.
    I’m always glad when “foreigners” from “developed” countries like Portugal.
    Also glad to see there are well educated Americans. Unfortunately, not the idea many of your countrymen transmit to us “Old Europeans”.
    Just one last comment: A tourist tends to see things in a romanticized way. Portugal has its dark sides.
    I love Portugal for three things: the sun, the sea, and most of all, the Portuguese people.

  19. I go with Joe. The IHT article was pure satire written by a mass-tourism professional. If you don’t believe it then you’ve been a “front-door” traveler. Get off the beaten track, go to places nobody’s ever heard of, places where an Americans are rarely seen. Avoid the big cities and get out in the country where you’ll see the real people. Stay in a walk-up room, with the bath down the hall, where American breakfasts are unheard-of. Above all, do your home-work and design a visit around what you enjoy, not what you’re expected to enjoy. Most people don’t do that.

  20. Just got back from Portugal 2 weeks ago and loved it! A little rainy this time of year, but still great. Gotta go to the Algarve next time, it was amazing! (and the only place where it wasn’t raining :)

  21. We are frequent travelers, took a cruise on the Douro River a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. Some beautiful, off the beaten path places and great insights especially about Catholicism in Portugal. I revisit it in my memory as often as the more ambitious trips on the Danube, etc. I disagree with your take on our President, therefore, we probably disagree with you on the preceding one also. We’ve never had a perfect president, but right now we need one who takes assaults on our homeland seriously! I hope your’s doesn’t become a political business, we appreciate your TRAVEL advice!!

  22. Joan, ANY President would take “assaults on our homeland [aka America] seriously.”

  23. Rick, In Portugal at Gabriel’s you write that you ate turtle,I’m wondering if you realize that people in many parts of the world, especially Mexico, are trying to save many speices of endangered turtles. When in Mex we made donations and released newly layed & hatched turtles eggs (eggs are grabed from the sand by people in this effort, hatched and released late in the evening so varments can’t get to them). Maybe you could put these attempts in your guide book. Milt> P.S. We enjoy and travel and live by your guide books.

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