City Overview: Lisbon, Portugal

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Kristin

Before getting into some of the details about our trip, we decided to start each recap off with a quick overview of the city. First up: Lisbon!

City. Lisbon, Portugal

When? Monday, Sept 3 – Thursday, Sept 6 (3 nights). While I think this was long enough, I wish we could have stayed one more night – to enjoy more food, not feel as rushed in Sintra and Belém, and to visit attractions that we didn’t have time for.

Where? We stayed at the Orange 3 House in the Chiado/Bairro Alto neighborhood area. It was 105 euros per night and included breakfast. We stayed in the top floor room (which we would do again!), but you can save 10 euros a night by staying in the first or second floor room instead. This B&B only has 3 roooms, and is staffed from about 8am-5pm (but they were able to accomodate other schedules). We absolutely loved it and will definitely want to stay here the next time we visit! If all of the rooms happened to be booked, we would want to stay in the same neighborhood (great night life, close to restaurants, close to areas of interest). Continue reading →

…And We’re Back!

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Kristin

Ryan and I got back Sunday night from our fabulous trip to Portugal and Spain. We had a wonderful time. We visited amazing sites, ate delicious food, and enjoyed fun activities.

We still have to go through our pictures, but we’re hoping to start recapping some of our favorite parts of the trip, and will continue to include insight from this trip in the future. We can’t wait to share stories, thoughts, and tips!

For now, here are a few pictures from our stay. Enjoy!

View from the Pena Palace in Sintra, Portugal Continue reading →

We’re Off!

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Kristin

We are finally leaving for our much-anticipated trip to Portugal and Spain! Our trip begins with four nights in Denver for a wedding and some family time, and then we’ll be enjoying two wonderful weeks on the Iberian peninsula.

We are all packed and we have some activities planned out, but we will be relying on guidebooks and suggestions from locals while we are there to fill up our days and nights. We have booked our day visit to the Alhambra, and I plan on booking a night visit once we get to Denver. We have plans for day trips from Lisbon and Granada, and a list of potential activities at each place. We haven’t spent much time researching specific restaurants, but we’re confident that finding great food will not be an issue.

We can’t wait to come back and share pictures, information, and more!

Drinking with a View

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Kristin

Whether we’re abroad or in our own city of Bakersfield, Ryan and I love to sip drinks and eat snacks while taking in a view. I received an email this morning from Fodor’s with a link to an article about the 10 best hotel bars with a view in Europe. It’s great timing because we’ll be visiting three of the cities this fall!

In Lisbon, the article recommends the BA Terrace at the Bairro Alto Hotel. This was already on my radar after reading about it in a Trip Advisor forum post. Since our Lisbon itinerary is fairly relaxed (we plan to do a lot of exploring in the different neighborhoods), there will hopefully be time for us to visit this bar and enjoy the fantastic view!

Continue reading →

Alhambra: Morning, Afternoon, and Night!

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Kristin

We are less than one month away from leaving for our Portugal and Spain vacation. These last few months have gone by so quickly – and here we are, feeling unprepared (but excited!) for our trip. We aren’t the type to plan out every single little detail, but we do love researching things to do, places to eat, and sites to see so we don’t waste time when we are there. However, there are some sites that are so popular that we have to actually plan a bit ahead of time. One of these is the Alhambra in Granada, and the more we research, the more we can’t wait for the experience. If you want to venture there one day, you may first have to research details like is sharelife vacations legit.