Portugal Please: Até Logotikichris

No. I can’t say writing about my Portugal Please road trip was nearly as fun as actually experiencing it. Still, I’ve enjoyed being able to share some of the highlights of the journey with you via my blog. Indeed, taking the time to reflect on when I was there has left me realising that Portugal might well be the most charming place I’ve ever been. As I said in the introductory piece I wrote for this series, Portugal is an overlooked, underrated and in many ways ideal place to visit – no matter what you’re into. And I reckon if you’re into engaging with friendly salt-of-the-earth folks in a beautiful and largely rural setting, the country should be at the top of your list of destinations.

To help you better browse the many posts I’ve published over the past couple of weeks about my recent trip to Portugal, here’s a list with links to all of them:

Portugal Please

For this adventure, I flew from Gatwick to Porto and wound my way down via the Centro region by car to the Alentejo, eventually flying out of (but spending no time in) Lisbon for Heathrow. I flew with TAP and experienced no hassles or delays. I would be more than happy to recommend the airline to anybody thinking about flying to Portugal or any of TAP’s routes.

My itinerary was a blend of two press trips. One, a tasteful tagalong with the Discover the Origin campaign to the Douro Valley to find out about (and drink lots of!) the region’s phenomenal wines as well as Portugal’s most iconic quaff, Port. The other was an especially delectable opportunity to “road test” the new Festival of Food offering from British tour operator, Sunvil. I had a wonderful time during both legs of my trip.

Significant aspects of my trip were made especially splendid through the hard work of kind folks at the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto (big thanks to Maria Cabral for being such an excellent host); Visit Centro de Portugal (Muito obrigado Silvia Aires for sharing your time and expertise); and Turismo do Alentejo (Patrícia Martins in Portalegre was particulary generous with her time and efforts).