www.Plesums.com (logo)

Jenny and Charlie's Travel Tips
Cities and Airports
Europe

Portugal

In addition to the Universal European 112 emergency number, 115 is also available

Americans visiting an Italian restaurant at home often find a bottle of water and a bottle of wine on the table, and have no problem ignoring them. The waiter often makes them disappear when they are not purchased. In Portugal you may have 5 or more appetizers on the table... bowls of olives, pate, cheese, bread, etc. If you eat (or even sample) them, you will be charged for them. If you don't want them, just set them aside, and the waiter will make them disappear, they will not be on your bill unless you taste. Many restaurant reviews by Americans cry foul at this "scam." It isn't a scam, it is a different country, and that is the way they do things for the locals as well as the tourists. Even bread is not free - consider it a cover charge if you are offended by paying for the bread!

Credit cards are widely accepted. Service (tip) is not routinely included in a restaurant bill, and is not easy to add on the credit card - leave a cash tip of around 10%. Many restaurants don't open for dinner until 7 pm or later, and don't get busy until 8 pm - dinner is late!

Portuguese is naturally the language, but English and French are widespread. If you are not good at languages you may think it is similar to Spanish, but the locals reportedly prefer English and French to Spanish.

Porto (Oporto) - the recommended travel from the international airport into town is via the metro. The fare is €1.85 plus €.60 for the rechargeable ticket. (Taxi is €20-30 and potentially slower.) There are vending machines, but you can also buy them from a person in the tourist office in the station. Escalator down and under the road, then up to the train - be sure to "validate" your ticket for the ride at the base of the escalator (touch the ticket to the machine). Everyone seemed concerned about whether they were on the right train... it is the end of the line, so any waiting train is the right one. It runs every 20 minutes, and in about a half hour you will be at the Trindade station in town - a 10 minute walk from our hotel, but we switched to the yellow line and went two more stops to São Benito metro station next to the train station of the same name, and very near our hotel.

The inter-city train station (Campanhã) is about a 12-15 minute taxi ride from center city, also accessible by metro. The in-town São Benito station is for commuter (suburban) trains. We took a taxi to Campanhã as we were leaving.

Lisbon (Lisboa) has two major train stations... Estação do Oriente is the primary station but quite a way out of town; we were able to get a train from Porto to Santa Apolánia station closer to central Lisbon.

The recommended connection to the international airport is by metro, but the metro only starts about 6 am and we had a 6:55 am flight. Uber (taxi) in a Mercedes was €6.56 (USD 7.50) and took less than 15 minutes, door to door, and picked us up at our hotel at 5 in the morning in just a couple minutes.



Back to the main travel page at www.plesums.com/travel

Back to the home page at www.plesums.com

Back to the Charlie's woodworking at www.plesums.com/wood

Back to the Suggestions for a solo craft business that worked for Charlie, at www.solowoodworker.com

Send e-mail comments and corrections to Charlie@Plesums.com


This entire site (layout and contents) ©2003-2019 by Charles A. Plesums, Austin, Texas USA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. If you would like to distribute copies of this document, or incorporate all or part in another web page or site, please contact us.