Spain and Portugal (0)

Before my last Spain trip, people told me that I should go to Salamanca. Unfortunately there were too many places that I wanted to go in Spain in two weeks that Salamanca didn’t make the list in 2011. So this year when I suddenly had an opportunity to go to Portugal, I decided to go to Salamanca, Spain first.

Here is the final itinerary:
Day 1: Fly to Madrid.
Day 2: Arrive in Madrid in the morning. Go to Salamanca by train. Salamanca sightseeing.
Day 3: Day trip to Avila, Spain.
Day 4: Salamanca sightseeing, then travel to Coimbra, Portugal by night train (1 am – 5:02 am). The timing of the train is awful. I wish I had I researched more before booking my airline ticket, because I could have taken a bus from Salamanca, Spain to Coimbra, Portugal during the day if Day 4 didn’t happen to be a Sunday. Most things, including bus station, close on Sundays in this part of the world.
Day 5: Coimbra sightseeing.
Day 6: Day trip Alcobaça, Batalha and Fátima by bus and taxi.
Day 7: Day trip to Tomar by train.
Day 8: Travel to Lisbon by train. Lisbon sightseeing.
Day 9: Lisbon sightseeing.
Day 10: Lisbon sightseeing and day trip to Queluz by train in the afternoon.
Day 11: Day trip to Sintra by train.  Initially I planned to do Sintra and Queluz in one day (they are 20 minutes from each other by train), but when I got to Lisbon, the hotel lady told me that there are so much to do in Sintra that there is no way I can do Sintra and Queluz in one day, so I moved Queluz to the day before. And she is right, doing Sintra in one day was hard enough.
Day 12: Day trip to Evora by bus.
Day 13: Fly home from Lisbon.

I didn’t realize this when I planned the trip, that we were going to so many places in 11 days, mainly because my plan was not set in stone, a lot of times we change the plan on the fly, due to weather or other circumstances, but this time we did go to almost all places I planned, and we were very tired at the end of the trip :)

A few notes about traveling in Portugal:
- A lot of places close on Sundays.
- Outside of Lisbon, many places don’t take (international) credit cards. And when they do, you need to enter the PIN code.
- ATM machines in Portugal only allow 200 Euros max per withdraw.
- Trains are slow and not on time sometimes. And the announcement about delay was in Portuguese only, making it hard for foreign tourists.
- Overall, I think Portugal is lacking in English display and public announcement, especially on trains and buses and at train stations, making it hard for foreign tourists.
- I found more Portuguese speaking English than Spaniards, and most of them willing to help, that helped a lot!
- In Lisbon, if you see the bus you are waiting is coming, you need to stick your arm out, signal the driver to stop, otherwise, they will just drive away!!!
- At restaurants, the appetizers they bring to your table that you didn't order are not free. But for the most part, they were reasonably priced, so we enjoyed eating the olives, sardine pâté, and prosciutto etc. Only one time we were surprised by the bread charge, because that restaurant charged the bread by pieces. We had 2 baskets of bread, each had 4 rolls in it. We were charged €0.70/roll. Most restaurants we ate before charged €0.70/basket. So we were surprised to see a €5.6 charge for bread, when the main dish only cost €8 in that restaurant.
(To be continued)