I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
I guess we had worked up so much of an appetite at this point that I forgot to even get the name of this little family owned and operated restaurant. It was cute and clean, with good food, so that’s all that really matters. It was somewhere in Ajuda. We tried our best to go to small family owned restaurants as much as we could. We always like to help the little guys when we can 🙂
This was “a light meal” so we just ordered one meal and split it between the two of us. Good thing we only ordered one meal. This is still a lot of food. 🙂
We wanted to eat lighter in the mid day because we had a food tour later, back in the Baxia district.
Have a great day and make everyday great. Live life to the fullest. It’s not the destination that matters, but the journey. Enjoy the ride. ‘Til next time.
After touring around the Belem area, we made our way to near-by Ajuda, where we saw the crown jewels and one of the many royal palaces. The amounts of gold, silver, jewels and opulence are just astounding and hard to wrap my head around. But …. it is beautiful and truly a sight to behold.
All of it was very overwhelming, but I did take quite a few photos. I know. You’re all STUNNED. 🙂 🙂 🙂
The Crown Jewels
The churches, both private and public, were just as wealthy, with just as much opulence as the royals. Most of the palaces and wealthy homes also had their own private chapels as well. Many were very extravagant.
From the crown jewels exhibit, we moved on to one of the near-by palaces. Portugal was ruled by the monarchy for 771 years, and there were 35 monarchs who ruled during this time period, from 1139-1910. Needless to say, there are a lot of palaces all around Portugal.
A model of the Ajuda Palace.
And of course, the kitchen. I have to say, I would LOVE a kitchen like this. 🙂
With palaces and royalty, there are also carriages. Believe it or not, there is a carriage museum too. Of course we went. How often do you get to see a carriage museum?
This is a “carriage” of modern design. I don’t think any of the royal members were riding around in this, but wouldn’t it be a fun ride?
The royal ambulance service.
With carriages comes horses. The royal stables have been turned into the stables for the equestrian police units.
At this point, we had worked up quite an appetite. Our next mission was to find a place to eat. But taking time out for lunch was just a little reprieve. We had a lot more adventures in store. This is a good stopping point for now. Trust me, there is plenty more coming your way soon. So sit back and relax. This is just a short intermission. 🙂
Have a great day and make everyday great. Live life to the fullest. It’s not the destination that matters, but the journey. Enjoy the ride. ‘Til next time.
Once again, I am accepting the photo challenge from Frank Hubney at https://frankhubeny.blog/ and Dale Cooper at https://cosmicphotochallenge.photo.blog/ Their challenge this time is on bridges. We saw a ton of bridges all over Portugal, that I will share with you.
No, this is NOT the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, but it is a replica in Belem, Lisboa, Portugal.
One of the many border crossings between Spain and Portugal, in the southern region of the Algarve.
Up north, along the Douro River. This is Porto.
In the Douro Valley wine country, where all the Ports are made.
Have a great day and make everyday great. Live life to the fullest. It’s not the destination the matters, it’s the journey. ‘Til next time.
The first thing we did after getting off the bus was to try the world famous Pasteis de Belem. They are very similar to pasteis de nata, but they are made with a “secret” recipe from the monks at the Jerónimos Monastery that has been trademarked by the restaurant. If they are NOT made here, they can not be called pasteis de Belem, therefore the name they are most commonly known as, pasteis de nata. They are all very good, and the differences are very subtle. But as our guide Bruno said, you have to try them many times before you discover which ones are the best. 🙂 Pasteis de Belem have been made with the same secret recipe since 1837.
This was our breakfast. Larry also tried one of the famous grilled ham & cheese sandwiches that was recommended from some of the videos we watched.
This is the famous restaurant for the Pasteis de Belem. It looks small from the front, but it is actually a very large restaurant with a nice courtyard in the back.
It was decorated with a lot of the azuljelos inside.
After finishing breakfast, we had a little time to stroll around before meeting up with our tour guide Luigi. Luigi took us all around the Belem area and gave us the history. Like Bruno, Luigi was very knowledgeable and informative. We learned so much.
One of the things we wanted to do was go into the cathedral, but it was closed to the public for repairs. It’s HUGE. It covered the whole block.
Here are some of the exterior details. This style is called Manueline. It is a combination of different styles of architecture. It is very prevalent all over Belem and Lisboa.
Before meeting up with Luigi, we strolled through the palace gardens. They were beautifully manicured and well cared for.
All around the gardens were the crests of all the Portuguese kingdoms before they were joined together to make one country. They were beautiful. Here are just a few.
From the park, we could see the Prime Minister or President’s Palace. Portugal has both a Prime Minister and a President. I don’t know which one resides there, but he is obviously a very important Head of State. We knew he was there because of the heavily armed security who were also present. When the President/Prime Minister is not there, there is still security, but not the heavily armed security.
After leaving the gardens, we went to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos or the Monument to the Discoveries. This map of the world shows all the routes to places under Portuguese influence.
And the Padrão dos Descobrimentos. It is the story of everyone who supported the Portuguese explorations. Portugal and the Portuguese navigators are responsible for the discoveries of many parts of the world as we know it today.
We had a semi private tour with Luigi and just one other person.
Do these remind you of famous pieces from other parts of the world? They should. This is a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, in San Francisco, made by the same people and the same materials.
This big statue of Christ looking over the city is very similar to the one in Rio de Janeiro.
Being right by the sea, of course there are going to be boats and marinas all around too.
Our tour with Luigi ended at the Belem Tower. We couldn’t go in, because once again, it was being repaired and restored.
Our tour with Luigi may have ended here, but Larry and I still had a very full day and went off to explore many other areas on our own. I will go into more details of those other places and things later, but I will end this “tour” with Jerónimos Monastery, which we did on our own, but it was still in the area.
The monks and religious leaders were surrounded by luxury just as much as the kings were.
This is one of the ceilings.
We bought the Lisbon Cards that got us into a lot of the museums, tours and sites for free. If you are going to Portugal, I highly recommend getting them. They are definitely worth the price you pay for them.
We did a lot more this day, but it will be information overload if I give it to you all in one blog. Trust me, I have a plethora of good stuff to share. I want to keep you interested, and not overwhelm you, so I am giving it to you in smaller increments. 🙂
Have a great day and make everyday great. Live life to the fullest. It’s not about the destination, but the journey. Enjoy the ride. ‘Til next time.
Whenever we travel, we try our best to eat the foods of the locals. Our first night in Portugal, after a very LONG, eventful day, we chose to eat at a little local place close to our hotel. It was a little restaurant called Fome de Leao.
It was a tiny little restaurant, as many of the small family owned restaurants are. But it was full of personality and the food was delicious.
The Portuguese are big meat eaters. In fact, they consume more meat than all other Europeans, with the exception of Spain. Meat consumption in Portugal is among the highest in Europe, reaching approximately 119.6 kg per person in 2023, with pork being the most consumed meat, followed by poultry, with high consumption of processed meats and sausages as well. They also eat a lot of fish. Cod is one of their favorite types of fish, which is really ironic considering cod is NOT found in the Portuguese waters. They have to import cod from the colder waters, mostly from the Nordic countries. The Portuguese diet is called the Atlantic Diet rather than the Mediterranean diet because of the amount of meat they consume. Over the past 50 years, the economic situation in Portugal has improved, making meat, which was once a luxury, widely available and affordable, leading to a massive increase in consumption.
We ate everything Portugal had to offer, fish, meat, pastries and then some. We enjoyed everything we tried. Our first dinner was delicious Portuguese meats cooked in traditional styles.
Almost every restaurant we went to started us off with a little bowl of olives. I could definitely get used to this trend. I love olives. And the only wines we drank were, of course, Portuguese wines. 🙂
I had roasted chicken.
Larry enjoyed one of the many varieties of Portuguese sausage. A lot of the meals come topped with fried eggs too.
It was all very good, but even better when we added some of the specialty chili oil.
It was a delicious way to end our first day in Portugal.
Stay tuned. There is a lot more still to come. Have a great day and make everyday great. Live life to the fullest. It’s not the destination that matters, but the journey. ‘Til next time.
Our flight left Denver around 4:00 PM on Tuesday afternoon, 3/17. We then flew to Dulles Airport, in Washington D.C., had a layover, then boarded the plane for our flight directly into Lisboa (Lisbon). Our flight to Lisboa was about 7 hours. Yes, we were very tired, and didn’t really sleep on the plane, but that didn’t stop us. No, no. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and got checked in as much as they would allow since we were very early, then off we went. We were off to start taking in the sights of Lisboa.
Lisbon is the 2nd oldest European Capitol, founded by the Phoenicians around 1200 B.C. Athens is the oldest European Capitol. Everything in Lisboa, looks very old and antiquated, and by our standards, they are. But don’t be fooled. Most of the city was rebuilt in 1755 after a devastating earthquake and fire that destroyed most of the city. Lisboa is divided up into different districts, each with it’s own unique personality and identity.
After dropping off our bags, we headed to the Baixa district for our first walking tour of the trip. We explored a little on our own too before meeting up with our tour guide, Bruno.
Larry has been planning this trip for months, and we had been watching all kinds of videos of things to do in Portugal long before leaving Denver. So we started doing some of the recommended activities before meeting up with Bruno.
We visited the tower, built by an engineering student who admired the works of Gustave Eiffel (the Eiffel Tower). Unofficially it is known as the Eiffel Tower of Lisbon, but its real name is the the Santa Justa Lift (Elevador de Santa Justa). It was built in 1902. If you can go up to the top of the tower, you will get a commanding view of the city, but it was closed for repair while we were there.
The Portuguese are very proud of their history and there are statues and monuments everywhere you look, honoring many different famous Portuguese people, from religious leaders, to explorers, to poets. This local poet is very famous in both Lisboa and all over Portugal. Fernando Pessoa is the most widely recognized name in Portuguese literature all over the world. Fernando Pessoa was born on 13 June, 1888, in Largo de São Carlos, in Lisbon. He was known as being a great thinker and voice of the city. He wrote a lot of pieces, poems and articles that were widely published. But what a lot of people don’t know about him though, is that he actually wasn’t really interviewing other people. He was “interviewing” and “speaking with” other voices in his own head. It is recorded that he had up to about 136 different personalities, and all of his writings and interviews were with himself, as one of his other personalities.
Pessoa’s works are found in the oldest bookstore in the world, located across the street from his statue. The Livraria Bertrand located in the Chiado district of Lisbon, Portugal was built in 1732. Of course, I bought a book from there, and they stamped it for me too, in both English and Portuguese.
Old fashioned cable cars are all over the place too. We didn’t ride one this day, but we did ride one later.
We stopped into check out the Museum of Sardines, where you can get a can of sardines with any year dated on the can. It looks like a circus. Of course it is a tourist trap (as it is told by the tour guides and the videos), where they charge you an arm and a leg for sardines, but it is definitely fun to see.
After getting acquainted with the Baixa a little on our own, it was time to meet up with Bruno, our tour guide for the day. Larry booked a lot of free walking tours before we left. I highly recommend doing this. We did a lot, all over Portugal, and the guides were all very knowledgeable and informative. Bruno was our first tour guide, and probably our favorite one too. He took us all over the place and gave us the history not just of the locations we stopped at, but of the country of Portugal too.
At one of our stops, we tasted the first of many of Portugal’s famous dessert, the pasteis de nata. Bruno is posing for me with our delicious pastries. Bruno said the best way to find your favorite is to eat A LOT of them. 🙂
Fun and interesting sites we saw on the tour.
Making the famous fishcakes. We ate and enjoyed them quite a bit too.
Graffiti is a big problem all over Portugal, as it is everywhere, so they are trying to inspire people to create works of art rather than ugly graffiti. I know I love the art. The graffiti, NOT so much.
All the streets, everywhere you go in Portugal are cobble stoned, with beautiful artwork laced in. Many tell differnt stories of the times too.
Fabulous artwork is on every corner, on every building.
And beautiful tiles are everywhere. You will see a lot of beautiful tiles in my pictures. They represent many things. They all have different meanings too. These mosaics are from the Moors. The Moors (Muslims) are not allowed to represent any type of animal life in their tiles or mosaics.
These tiles are the famous Azuljelols. They each tell stories in their pictures, and are in the blue and white. Most people were illiterate, so the pictures on the tiles told them the stories and histories.
This is a very old tile that represents old family wealth.
I am SO glad we didn’t rent a car in Lisboa. Traffic was a nightmare.
Churches, cathedrals and castles are everywhere, almost on every street corner. Portugal has over 4,300 Catholic parishes and hundreds of evangelical churches, with Roman Catholicism being the dominant religion (84.77% in 2021). The Catholic Church operates 21 dioceses and approximately 4,378–4,380 parishes in Portugal. Most of the churches and cathedrals are gorgeously and ornately decorated too, mostly with tons of gold and silver from Brazil. You will see lots of both churches and castles in my series of pictures and adventures.
This is one of the oldest churches left after the HUGE earthquake of 1755. They left the roof off as a reminder of just how devastating the earthquake was. This church was built in the 15th or 16th century.
There used to be a fairly large Jewish population in Portugal, but not for centuries. Today, the country is overwhelmingly Catholic.
Portugal has a high density of historical fortifications, with estimates ranging from over 150 to nearly 500 castles and fortresses, including ruins and well-preserved structures. The highest concentrations are in the central and northern regions, particularly along the Spanish border (e.g., Beira Interior, Douro) and surrounding Lisbon. This is Costelo Sao Jorge. It looks ancient right? Nope. It was rebuilt in 1935, but it is still very cool. 🙂 (More on Costelo Sao Jorge later though).
Another famous food we had to try was the famous bifana, or roasted pork sandwich, with the hot mustard and chili oil.
I have so much more to share, but all in good time. This is a perfect place to stop from our first day’s adventures. Sit back and relax. We’re just getting started. Enjoy the tour.
Have a great day and make everyday great. Live life to the fullest and enjoy the ride. It’s not about the destination, but the journey you take. ‘Til next time.
I love participating in all the fun little challenges that pop up. This one is from Frank Hubeny at http://frankhubeny.blog/ and by Dale Cooper at https://cosmicphotochallenge.photo.blog/ for pictures of the first day of spring. We were in Portugal on the first day of spring, so I will provide some spring photos from Portugal. 🙂
Have a great day and make everyday great. Add some spring to your life everyday.
We had a great time in Portugal. We did and saw so much. We divided our trip into three main portions – Lisbon (Lisboa), the Algarve (the southern region) and Porto and the northern region. We spent about 5 days in each section. There is so much to share. Where do I even begin?
Let’s start with the history. Portugal is a very old, very proud nation, dating back roughly 3000+ years, with it being formed as an individual nation in 1143. The Phoenicians were the first to arrive in Portugal. The Celts, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians established settlements before the Roman conquest, which began in 219 BC. Then the Romans came. Rome ruled for 600 years (roughly 2nd century BC to 5th century AD), establishing cities like Lisbon (Olissipo) and Porto, and introducing Latin and Christianity (Portugal is even more religious and Catholic than Spain or Italy, if you can believe that). Following Rome’s fall, Germanic tribes (Suebi and Visigoths) controlled the area. In 711, the Moors came and ruled for 700 years. The Christian monarchies conquered the Moors after, and in 1128 Alfonso Henriques became the first king of Portugal. Portugal was ruled by it’s own monarchs until 1580, then the monarch who was in power died with no heir to the throne, which allowed the Spanish to invade and take over. The Spanish ruled Portugal until 1640, when the Portuguese regained their independence from Spain. (To this day, there is still a HUGE rivalry between Portugal and Spain). It was once again ruled by Portuguese monarchs until 1910, when they were overthrown and ousted, by Portuguese revolutionaries. It was a dictatorship from 1910-1974. In 1974, a bloodless military coup (the Carnation Revolution) ended the dictatorship and sparked the return to democracy. It grew from a feudal county into a global superpower during the Age of Discoveries, building a vast empire before transitioning into a modern democratic republic in 1974, following centuries of monarchy, a Spanish union, and dictatorship. Today, Portugal is a Republic, with elected officials. So, it has had a very colorful past, rich with history and influenced by many different people and cultures.
We learned all of this, and so much more, through our many tours of each region we visited. We took walking tours everywhere. We visited castles, churches, monasteries, museums, wineries, cruised the along Douro River (a couple of times) and explored on our own. We were very busy and active the whole trip. And we WALKED, WALKED and WALKED. We averaged between 6-7 miles of walking, up and down steep hills, but one day we actually walked 14 miles. Needless to say, we did a lot of walking. When we weren’t walking, we were taking busses and trains all around. We had to come home just to relax. 🙂
Flying into Lisbon, or Lisboa as it is called by the Portuguese.
We got around like the locals do.
The only time we had a car was when we were visiting the Algarve. We got a bright green little car we named o sapo, or the frog. And from there, our little frog then became known as Freddy (I had a frog when I was a little girl that we named Freddy the Frog).
We didn’t see everything Portugal has to offer, but we did see a lot. That’s a good thing though. It means we have more to see and explore for another trip or two. 🙂
I am still going through pictures and editing them, and still have MANY, MANY more to go through. So sit back, relax, and get comfortable. I have so many great things to share. 🙂
Have a great day and make everyday great. Live life to the fullest and enjoy the ride. It’s not about the destination, but about the journey. 🙂 ‘Til next time.
We’re back. 🙂 🙂 🙂 We got home late Tuesday night. We had a great time in Portugal and saw and did so much. We were all over the place. Yesterday, we hit the ground running, as usual after a vacation. I am just now starting the editing process of ALL my pictures. As usual, I took a ton of pictures too, so it will take awhile. 🙂 I am also going through all my bazillion emails. But soon enough, I will be back in business once again. I have so much to share with you. 🙂
Whether you are Irish everyday or just for today, here is an Irish prayer for you.
I am off to Portugal. You won’t hear from me for the next two weeks. I will be taking in all the sights and tasting all the great foods of Portugal. But have no fear, you know you will hear all about it once I return home.
Have a great day and make every day great. May 2026 be filled with happiness, good health and prosperity for all. ‘Til Next time.
A Jeanne in the Kitchen 