Portugal

Strong, old pine tree branches cutting through a cloudless cerulean sky — a sight I find hard to beat. Throwing open the curtains at Pine Cliffs Resort in the Algarve, I wondered why I’d been away from Portugal so long.  Bleary-eyed, I reflexively photographed my first glimpse of the Atlantic from my Junior Ocean Suite’s balcony, seagulls cinematically swooping into the frame. Another vain attempt to capture the colors that always keep me coming back; the pictures somehow never as good as the real thing. I’d posted up from Tokyo gone dinnertime the previous night, just outfoxed by Japan’s famed pink sakura (2024’s late bloom meant I missed them by twenty-four hours). Waking up deathly early, I soaked away grizzly jet lag in my spacious room’s egg-shaped tub.

World-class golf, more than 300 days of sunshine a year, flavorsome local seafood, excellent wines and more than 1,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline. There are countless reasons to add Portugal to your bucket list, not least that United Airlines has announced direct flights from New York to Faro, starting in 2025. Me, I might have been living in Lisbon on and off for four years, but I’m continually surprised by new discoveries, from quirky bookstore openings in central Lisbon (Salted books, I love you) to secluded coves or gnarly rock formations in the Algarve’s emblematic places such as Praia do Marinha.

Rebecca Illing’s résumé doesn’t read like your typical hotelier’s: circus school graduate, free diver, marine conservation advocate and certified death doula. So when the thirty-seven-year-old Londoner inherited a rundown guest house in Portugal’s northerly Minho region, the property was destined to be reimagined as something more than a straightforward B&B. Illing had spent childhood summers at Paço da Glória, roaming its cork oak woodlands and swimming in the nearby Lima River. But the circumstances of her return in 2020 were less idyllic. Europe was entering lockdown, and she was grieving the sudden death of her brother.

Forget Barcelona. Say sayonara to San Fran. And so long, London. Post-Covid, Lisbon has become a hub for the creative, hungry and cosmopolitan. A throng of new restaurants, wine bars and buzzy co-working spots has formed a playground for the young and ambitious.  They’re squeezing every last drop out of their free time, too, joining the tourists in thumping nightclubs before escaping to beautiful  beaches. But plenty of weekend visitors don’t know (or have time to discover) that the city is flanked by bucolic countryside, dotted with world-class hotels and agriturismos. A forty-minute drive can take you to pristine white sands, enchanting pine forests, retro beachfronts and sprawling national parks. Next time you’re in town, tack a road trip onto your city break.

Quizzed on how best to assimilate a new culture, travel writer and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain once uttered the famous line: “Drink heavily with locals whenever possible.” I never met the man, but still I miss him and his deft writing. The Opening a Bottle series is about getting pickled with people far cooler than I am, in whatever city I’ve washed up in.  “What is it, love?” A British lady, tanned deep walnut, is curious, as are most passersby. I’m standing outside the imposing red façade of Red Chalet in the sleepy town of Armação de Pêra, in Portugal’s Algarve. She’s the third septuagenarian to greet me since I touched down. I smile to myself — some stereotypes exist because they’re true.

Six months of the year, I’m a (wannabe) Lisboeta, “a person from Lisbon.” A peripatetic British food and travel journalist somewhat scuppered by Brexit, I’m allowed in the Schengen Area for up to ninety days in any 180-day block. I max them out before I’m sent packing. I’ve come to think of these moments in time as “chapters,” in a half-hearted attempt to romanticize the loss of my border privileges. Lisbon is the object of my affections — and has become my base for European chapters from which I breathlessly ping between countries. I try new dishes and try not to fall in love with anyone before I’m ordered home (rather inconvenient: "getting married for the visa" jokes grow less and less funny).

Hiking toward the Spanish border on my second day after setting off from Bayonne, I set down my backpack on a grassy patch beside a beach. It was bloody hot — August in the southwest of France — and the sight of beachgoers taking a shower had a cooling appeal. I stripped to my underwear and enjoyed the bracing shower burst. Then I looked down. Water was cascading over what looked like leprosy, breaking out over the right side of my chest. Feeling self-conscious, I got dressed and plodded on. Twenty-five miles later, at the sparkling city of San Sebastián, the pain proved too much. I lifted my shirt to two Portuguese pharmacists — and they pointed me toward the nearest hospital. I had herpes zoster, commonly known as shingles.

On the morning of November 1755, Lisbon was struck by one of the deadliest earthquakes in history. It measured between 8.5 and 9.0 on the Richter scale, split the city center with fissures 16 feet wide, and killed perhaps 40,000 people (out of a population of 200,000). Shocked survivors gathered by the docks on the River Tagus, which had turned to a giant mudflat, littered with wreckage, as the sea mysteriously retreated. Many of them were killed by the tsunami that engulfed the city center 40 minutes later. Still, every cloud has a silver lining.