Day 1 Porto, Portugal

Hotel Royal Bridges, Rua de Sa da Bandeira 53, Sala 111, Porto, Portugal.  You can see the narrow street, and lots of pedestrian traffic.  You can see we're in Old Town with the bulk of the architecture not being modern like our hotel.  We spent 4 nights here.  Two nights were scheduled with the tour, and we added 2 pre-tour nights.

We arrived mid morning from our overnight flight.  Relaxed a bit here in the dining room.  This is where we'll have breakfast each morning.

The bar area with the reception desk in front.  Our room wasn't ready, so we relaxed and had a refreshing Gin and Tonic.

There was a bit of problem in that they gave us the wrong type of room, so we ended up walking around while they were fixing the problem.  But once in, this was our room and the view from our room.

A short walk from our hotel was the Sae Bento Train Station with gorgeous tiles, each frame telling a story.

The train station was built Oct 5, 1916 on the site of a Benedictine Convent

Since we've not gotten to check into our room yet, we're still wearing our traveling clothes.

Portugal is known for Port Wine, Cork, White Washed Villages, Roman Ruins, and ancient Castles.  Porto is a UNESCO site.  It's extremely hilly with uneven and often slippery cobblestone.  Wear good walking shoes.  I struggled a bit in our small walk, as I'm still wearing my traveling flats, not my walking shoes.

On our way from the airport to the hotel, our driver told us the most famous of Portugal dishes is a Francesinha Sandwich.  He said it's a must, it's large and very good.  French fries are also a big thing in Portugal.  So we found a little cafe near the hotel and settled in for an early dinner.  We share the one order of fries and Francesinha Sandwich....and we still didn't finish the whole thing.  I don't know how people can eat all that on their own.

The brief description of the sandwich is: layers of meat (pork and beef we think), covered in a cheese and a beer sauce with an egg on top.  You can see how the sauce is almost like soup.  Sometimes this is served on top of the fries sometimes on the side.

We had an early nightcap once back at the hotel of Bourbon and called it a night.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

Portugal Fall of 2026, The Journey Begins!

Sunny Portugal with Porto, A Collette Tour:

The map shows you the tour begins in Porto in the North of Portugal, goes as far south as Lagos, then turns north up to Lisbon where the tour ends.  It shows you the number of nights spend in the locations in the dark circles and the other locations visited in route.

Our journey to get to Porto was cumbersome.  Columbus, Ohio to Chicago....Chicago to Madrid...Madrid to Porto.  4 Airports with an average of about 3 hours layover in each location.  Physical flight time was just under 12 hours.......so a long journey.  We booked with American and Iberia (the Spanish sister airline from Chicago forward).  Business class isn't cheap, but at my age and with that long of a flight, I just couldn't imagine not doing business class.

I had a Bloody Mary in the first lounge

Later in the day in another lounge hubby and I had some bubbly.

Me once we made it on board in Chicago for our overnight flight to Madrid.  I always fly in a dress.  A loose fitting comfy dress that doesn't wrinkle and is mid calf.  When you sit or laydown that long, it's more like wearing a nightgown.  I make a point not to have something with a snug waste.

In the background you see the end of my wine with dinner and in the foreground our nightcap.  We both had Johnny Walker Blue.  We were surprised to see that as an option for after dinner and couldn't turn it down.  It's a bit pricey, so it's not something we buy at home.  It sure went down nicely, then it was lights out, until landing in Madrid, Spain.  In addition to the usual immigration, we also needed to do the new EES (enhanced security that is not yet operational in many countries).  We had seen video's and heard of folks waiting a couple of hours to get through this new procedure; but.......we zipped right through which was a huge relief to us both.  Possibly because it wasn't crowded that time of the morning when we arrived in Madrid 8:20am....AND maybe because we had loaded the app "Travel to Europe" ahead of time were pretty prepared.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

Day 1 in Paris, Before the Tour and La Boheme

We paid for an extra night at the hotel, so when we arrived mid morning we would be able to check in and not wait til 4 pm.  As we entered this small botigue hotel (had only 23 rooms) we had a little sitting area with a kitchen type area for the coffee machine.  The door to the bathroom is there on the left.

The hotel was historic and they tried to keep the feel in the decore.
The hotel is family owned along with 2 others that they refurbished.

The room was quite comfortable, and the staff was excellent.  We had 2 chairs.  The closet was roomy with ample space for hanging items as well as shelves.  Really much more then you often get in hotels in the states.

We were happy to check in, and take a nap before heading out to look around a bit.  We also had tickets for the Opera this night and needed some rest before hand.

The hotel called a taxi for us and suggested a place for an early dinner before the opera.  The Opera was La Boheme at the Bastille Opera House, which is the modern facility.

We would have preferred to attend the opera in the historic Opera House, The Garnier Theater, but apparently most of the performances are now held at the new facility.

The music was fabulous, but we didn't think much of the modern take on the Opera where the people are stranded in space.  We didn't feel like the story translated well.

Once the lights went out, we had a hard time staying awake, and perhaps we would have enjoyed the performance more if it hadn't been the day we got there with our jet lag.  It was the only night that would be possible for us to go though.  So theres that.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

France Here We Come!

 France the 6th go round!  France Magnifique through Collette is a trip with a history.  Hubby and I first scheduled this tour for the Fall of 2021.  Covid hit, it was postponed until The Spring of 2022, then again postponed until the fall of 2022.  As Covid was still a problem it was postponed yet again for the Spring of 2023; but things were not yet really safe........so it was scheduled for the Fall of 2023.  We did actually arrive in Paris a day early as we always like to give ourself a buffer due to travel and time to settle in due to jet lag.  

However, on the day we arrived; hubby came down with Covid.  So, we sat in our hotel room for 5 days for isolation and the tour went on without us.  We then had to scramble to find flights home, as our previously scheduled flight was slated for the end of tour.

Feeling like this tour was jinxed, I decided we could not book it again the next year in 2024.  We needed to take a different tour to break up the bad mojo.  We went to Sicily in the fall of 2024.

AND drum roll

Here's hubby in the airport lounge as we depart for Paris France to take the same Collette Tour, France Magnifique.  It's Billed as a 12 day tour, includes 16 meals.  10 Breakfasts, 1 Lunch, and 5 Dinners.  We  did our own airfair, so that's not included in the tour price, nor is the travel insurance that one really needs to get.  We did manage to get our funds back from the ill-fated attempt in the fall of 2023.

I rarely do selfies, because I'm not good at it; but here's one of me once we got on board our flight to France.  We did opt for business class seats which for a long flight, an overnight flight to Europe is certainly more comfortable.

Hubby took one of me, you can see the seating arrangement a bit more,

And I took one of hubby.  We scheduled 2 additional days at both the front and back end of this tour.  As we age, the travel seems a bit more tiring; so we wanted extra time.  And, we wanted to spend more time in Paris then the tour allotted.  

The tour has you fly in and out of Paris, but the tour actually starts in Versailles.  So we booked 2 nights in Paris on our own.  At this point we're still holding our breathe that we will get there and both remain healthy and get to actually take the scheduled tour.

We started our with our glass of Champagne and as we hit altitude the dinner preceding's began.  We both had a good meal with wine, watched a movie; then reclined our lay flat seats to get some sleep.  And while doing that is nice, you really only get a few hours because of the difference in time zones and they have to wake you for breakfast before landing.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

Day 1 Afternoon, Sept 26, 2024 Monreale Cathedral

Afternoon, still day 1 of our tour.  Our itinerary reads: This afternoon head to Monreale Cathedral, ascending on foot to see its majestic Byzantine mosaics.  Then, it's our choice!  Explore the cathedral's cloisters, taking in their serene atmosphere of the monastic complex - OR - ascend the southern tower to the panoramic terraces for a bird's -eye view over Palermo.

Once we were done with the guided tour, we could explore on our own.  This cathedral is considered to be the best example of Norman Architecture.  The building began in 1174 by William II of Sicily.

It was elevated to the Archdiocese of Monreale in 1183, and completed in 1267.  Since 2015 it's been part of the Arab-Norman Palermo and the Catholic churches of Cefalu' and Monreale UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There were two Sarcophagi, but I wasn't able to get a picture of the 2nd one. Both William the I and William II of Sicily are there.

It was quite colorful, with incredible detail everywhere you looked.

I opted for walking around the cloisters, while hubby climbed the southern tower.

Time to meet up with our traveling companions and board the coach to return to the hotel.  We were told no sleeveless tops, no shorts above the knee.  Our estimated time to arrive back at the hotel was 5:30 where we would have dinner on our own.

I tried to load the video hubby took of the birds eye view, but couldn't get blogger and the video to play nice.  Sorry folks.  Just a picture instead.