Well planned trip. It was our first trip to P...

Portugal | Sep 11 - Sep 19, 2023

Best breakfast and friendly staff. Good location for finding interesting restaurants, but located on a rather mixed ( some run down/empty buildings). Also room is worn down.. carpet was very stained, headboard fabric had several tears and the glass side tables had large chips in them.

First, keep in mind this is an apartment with daily room service. The front desk is only staffed from 9-6 and there are no elevators. Our room was on the third floor.. four flights of stairs. We didn’t mind the stairs except when lugging our suitcases up to the top floor. The aparthotel was very clean, located right on the central square and very spacious. We stayed in a one bedroom with small balcony views. The pictures on Casa Margot’s website are very accurate. Only downside is parking. You can park in a free lot. It is about 1/3 mile away, which is not bad. However, finding the lot is challenging. We got lost and had to drive though the insanely narrow, hilly one way streets, had to back up one time down a street and realized Apple Maps is useless within old towns. There are not street signs, just plaques on walls you can’t read. Anyway, very specific directions with pictures would have been helpful to find the lot. You can drive to the lot and circumnavigate the city, thus avoiding all the internal one way streets. Also, the lot is not paved , consisting of two connected areas on a slope. We found the lot one time, but my husband insisted that couldn’t be right. So off we went again looking for it. A picture of the lot would have helped too.

Keep in mind, my husband and I were running on fumes when we started this tour. Due to flight delays, we arrived a day late in Lisbon. We knew we’d miss an entire night of sleep traveling to Lisbon, but we also missed the night before starting to travel due to the cancellations, rebooking and a 6 am flight to start the journey. The guide brought several maps to show how Lisbon transformed over time. Interesting, but we spent about the first 15 minutes looking at maps. I’d also say I would never pair this guide with anyone making the pilgrimage to Fatima. She often commented negatively about the Catholic Church. Everyone has the right to his/her opinion, but please keep it to yourself ( or make comments about how expensive universities are in the USA). We worked very hard to save for this trip and yes pay for our children’s college education and their future careers engineering and marketing/Spanish . I had to hold my tongue at times .

Fabulous!!! FYI Nuno arrived at our hotel at 8 am, while Greg and I were enjoying a quick breakfast. At 8:30 someone knocked on my door to let me know Nuno was waiting .. I reread my notes which said 9 am pick up. Anyway, we hurried, Nuno hurried and we made on 9:45 ticket time for the tour of Peña palace. Next, we hiked through the neighboring woods about 3 miles, went to Cruz Alta then drove to Cabo da orca for an outstanding picnic lunch. Incredible. He then took us back the scenic route though cascais

Great lunch, scenic location, interesting concept. It’s more of a lunch and wine tasting.. with a very brief tour of the vines. Biggest negative, wasps were so bad at the end of the meal we couldn’t finish. We asked of there was something they could do, but they said no.