N is for Natas
I don’t know why I never really tried Pasteis de Natas before, or more worryingly if I did try them and didn’t like them. For that reason I kind of expected not to like them this time around as well, but that first bite into a Pastel de Nata in Lisbon’s TimeOut Market and I was hooked. I didn’t get to try them at the place maybe most famous for Natas in Lisbon – Pasteis de Belem, but that is one thing of quite a few on my list for next time. We had them at TimeOut Market which were great, but really after sampling random ones in coffee store/bakeries and even grabbing a couple in Lisbon airport on our way out, I can confidently say that it is very hard to find a bad Nata in Lisbon and the good ones are otherworldly, especially with the light sprinkle of cinnamon on top. Food too often defines a city for me but it’s rarely one specific food. There were other great things I ate in Lisbon, but the Nata will define it.
O is for Open Squares
Other than maybe second to closed pedestrian alleys, nothing speaks to being more European to me than the open squares that are in every big city – and as I learned in this trip even smaller cities. The Plaza Mayor or Puerta del Sol in Madrid is known, and I had been there before, but the main square of Granada was charming. The one in Seville was sprawling (both the actual one and the ‘cool’ one which was littered with bars and restaurants on every side). There were many inside of San Sebastian’s old town and a couple within Bilbao’s. There’s also the great different types, either the large one with a statue in the middle, tons of people milling about and restaurants serving tapas/pintxos on every side, or smaller ones that also have statues in the middle, lesser numbers of people milling about, and maybe a few interesting spots on the alleys. All in all, Europe has some amazing squares, Spain is absolutely a leader in this capacity, and more than maybe anything else about it, this is what the US should adapt.
P is for Pintxos
Pintxos, the Basque form of Tapas, was our mainstay food in the region outside of going to Azurmendi. We didn’t get true ‘Pintxos’ until Lunch on our second day in San Sebastian, with three of us needing some time to kill while the other two were getting haircuts. We found a couple Pintxos spots, pointed to pieces of bread covered with various toppings, asked “Que es?” many times and ordered what we thought would be god. We were more often than not right. My favorites were the ones combining multiple elements, like some interesting greens (e.g. friend onions) over a slice of jamon, with a strip of anchovy on top or something to that effect. We had traditional pintxos again for dinner that night when we needed to find a place last minute to escapte torrential rain in the heart of old town. We had it a few other times throughout there and Bilbao as well – never getting old of each places spin on traditional pintxos. I really could eat these for lunch and dinner for a week straight – with the stout, short glass of cerveza – or at least could if not for the heavy bread count!
Q is for Quality Time
Honestly, the best part of the trip was the time spent with friends, both with ones I see often though in the confines of New Jersey, to those that moved away over time and we got to see in more meaningful ways than we have since nearly the old pre-pandmenic world. We’ve done these group trips since 2014 when we took a cruise (that was the same five of us, plus four others), and then done further ones in Denver (6 of us), Peru (3), The Balkans (7), Italy (6), San Diego (6) and now this. This trip was probably the most complex, definitely the most finely planned, and ended up without a hitch but with a bunch of great memories just chilling in AirBNBs, or meandering down streets and so much else. Sure, it’s a different type of vacation than I normally do – even this planned one was far less planned then the ones I take solo. But in the end, we got to see great places but mostly got to restock the reserves of insides jokes, laughs and great times.
R is for Roaming Streets
This wasn’t necessarily a trip about museums and grand churches, though we did a few of those. What it was most was a trip to roam around street to street, alley to alley and just ‘live’ these cities. The best ones for this were Lisbon, where we did it by tuk-tuk but largely the same, or Sevilla where we got in a bit late so could only do one site (the great Alcazar) and walked from one end of the main part of the town to the other. We did the same the last day in Madrid, my favorite city which held strong to that designation by just wandering around and seeing the grandeur of Passeo del Prado and the smaller streets off of it. Even Barcelona we did a lot of wandering, especially after its forced 12:30am curfew, where we were joined by hundreds of other youngsters still wandering around. My favorite though was probably in Granada, each day after their curfew of 1am we took beers to go from the local craft beer bar, one to drink on the 20-min walk back through the town, past small alleys, its main square and main street befixed with ‘rubiks-cube’ esqued streetlamps. You can get lost so easily in this city and there truly may not be a better way to experience them.
S is for Sintra
Sintra was the only ‘day-trip’ that we did in the more literal sense, taking most of our middle day in Lisbon. I was told both by one friend in the group who had been there when he went to Lisbon in 2017, and my parents, that Sintra is a great little town. It was definitely that. What I didn’t realize is how picturesque it really is. I had long seen photos of its multi-colored palace/fortress at its apex without realizing it’s from Sintra so that was definitely a nice suprirse. What was more of a surprise is their town built into the cliff, with its own little open square, and National Palace worth visiting with incredible views in every direction, along with great rooms – my favorite being one with different blue-tile murals in every direction and ceiling. We had limited time in Lisbon – limited time everywhere to be honest given the pacing of the trip – but giving up one of our days there for Sintra was absolutely worth it.
T is for Tourism
I’ve written a few times about how much losing being able to travel, and also a few pieces about my first forays back, trips to Arizona and Colorado earlier this year. Well, thisis a new first as well – the first time going out of the country. I used to go out of the country weekly right before the pandemic started, granted to Canada, but still that feeling of being somewhere else was a constant part of life. From a truly vacation aspect, my last trip away from the US was to Cape Town for President’s Day Weekend in 2020. It felt so good the first time I got a new passport stamp since that Cape Town trip, the first time having to deal with customs, deal with drawing different money than my own, trying to converse in Spanish or speak English with a portugeuse accent. All of it was not new, but novel having not done it for 19 months. This was just a great trip from that aspect. More ‘foreign’ destinations that I used to hold reserve for these 2-week trips (e.g. Israel, Egypt, Africa, Vietnam, etc.) are unable to be visted at this point so we focused on friendly Europe, and it was just a blast to be back for a lengthy visit. b
U is for Unexpected Visitors
I said earlier this trip was a group of three for Barcelona, Granada and Sevilla, and then five for the remainder. This is factually true, but unexpectedly and amazing not true in heart. One of this group’s other members moved at the start of the pandemic to Barcelona. We always joked how we would never see him again (he was in California prior to Spain, we already started seeing him just 1-2x/year). Well, that wasn’t why we went to Barcelona but we ended up getting to spend a bunch of time with him, meeting him for dinner both nights, and going to his and his girlfriend’s place on the third day – choosing that bit of extra time with our ‘long lost’ (in a way) close friend than see another museum or palace or something. Like you would expect little of the time was spent drilling into his ‘new’ life Spain, but rather to reminisce about our shared years together, joke around and act as if he was a sixth member of the trip. It was just a great joy that added to an already great trip itinerary.
V is for Views
If I was trying to be as accurate as possible, this should probably be ‘Miradors’ or ‘Miradouros’ but in each case of the word it comes back to the amazing views. The one advantage of so many cities we visited being built on or immediately below hills is that they lend itself to amazing views. The best were probably on some of the main hills of Lisbon, with the water and tiled roofs in every direction. Bilbao had some great ones from actually very near our AirBNB. There were great views on San Sebastian from the top of Mount Urguell (probably even better ones from the other Mount that we didn’t do). And of course of Barcelona from Parc Guell. These cities are so beautiful from up high, with the terracotta tiled roofs, the greenery, the water, all of it was great. On our last night in Lisbon, our AirBNB in Bairro Alto is a block in from a viewpoint that gives you a slight glimpse of the sea, it was such a gorgeous view even in night we spent much of our last night there just passing a couple Super Bock beers between us – we were not alone as this seemed to be a possible common late night spot for many groups of young locals. In the end the views are important but always best captured as memories, never looking as good in person as they do in person in the moment.
W is for Wine (& Port)
We were never really a wine drinking group, and I wouldn’t say we are becoming one, but with age does bring about a bit more interest in the stuff. We often shared a bottle instead of a round of cervezas at dinner, or got the house wine during tapas. I’m definitely no winophile at this point, but maybe I can see a future of it. What I definitely can see a future in is port. The one request from my parents in terms of a gift from the trip was a bottle of tawny port from Portugal. We weren’t going to Porto (will happen at some point after this!) but I did go down to the Taylor showroom to taste a couple glasses and man was port incredible. This wasn’t even a fancy variety for them – their standard 10year aged Tawny port. So perfectly sweet and easy to drink. I’m definitely not a wine guy, but I may be a port guy, and if this is the stepping stone that does it so be it.
X is for X’s in Basque
I always never have a good idea for an X, especially if there’s not an easy answer. I’ll go with the fact that the letter ‘x’ along with a few others, is so present in the strange language that is Basque. From what I gather, there’s no real known starting point for where the language came about – there’s no set connection to any other European language. When we looked at menus with Basque & Spanish written it was hilarious how different they were. All in all, I’m not even sure if I ever heard anyone speak Basque, as it sure seemed like the default language of conversation, both when being spoken to and overhearing others, was standard Castillian Spanish. That said, Basque is first on signs and roads and menus and everything else, the absurdity of the number of ‘X’s and ‘K’s and so many others will never not be funny and humorous to me.
Y is for Y Class
In Airline parlance 'Y Class' means 'Business Class', and I was fortunate enough to take it on the initial flight of the trip from Newark to Barcelona. I was not lucky, I used my hard earned upgrade points that are set to expire in December after United is seemingly not going to follow Delta's lead and let status get extended another 12 months. Anyway, due to a late equipment switch I got to ride in United's Polaris stylized cabin, which was great. If anything, it was cozy enough I was almost unnerved - I guess more seasoned business class traveler would have no such issues sleeping flat on a sky bus moving 500mph. The food is still lacking, mostly due to pandemic limitations (or at least that's the excuse the US airlines are using), but the seat, the Saks bedding, all of it was a great way to start the trip.
Z is for Zero Regrets
This is a common ‘Z’ for me – similar issue here as with the ‘X’. In this case, I mean it as well because it was such a new trip – the first time traveling during a pandemic. The first itme facing those protocols and curfews. It definitely impacted this trip but in the end didn’t impact the fun. Cities forced curfews at times between 12:30 – 2am (either way well before their pre-pandemic operating levels), but we were able to keep the fun going in our AirBNBs. We all had to take at least two if not three covid tests during the course of the trip, and all results came back negative. This was not a normal trip – it was the longest we had done together (at least for the three of us that spend the full two weeks). It was the one with the most flights and changes to city and place. It was done with a good deal of planning, but also a lot left unknown, and in the end it all worked. It always does. Sure, there’s a few things left on the cutting room floor in terms of sights not seen or restuarants not eaten at, but in the end the trip accomplished its goals: two weeks of bliss away from laptops, emails, at times even English, and just fun in a world in its current form seemed built to limit it.
