I have been hoping to write these trips up right after they happened.  But here I am a month into this trip, several cities, a couple countries down, and I am finally getting to it.  I will say I think this is the most relaxed I’ve been in about 8 years, so I have been just soaking up European summer life – walking, heading to the market, hiking, shopping… instead of hopping on my computer.  Finally writing here is because for the first time, I’m spending more time indoors because of a heat wave.

First up on our trip is Lisbon!  We flew directly from the US to Lisbon.  With Tap Portugal air you can do stopovers in Porto or Lisbon.  Anywhere from 1-5 nights.  Then hop over to your destination.  I remember seeing this a few years ago thinking it would be great, and glad I recalled it!  I had never flown Tap before, but was pleasantly surprised.  We arrived at 5:30am their time, and went through passport control relatively easy.  We had a driver pick us up and take us to our hotel.  We booked Emerald House through our AMEX with points.  European hotels are notorious for only sleeping 2-3… so we had to get two rooms.  It was very reasonably priced.  With the Amex with this hotel you get food and beverage credit, and that covered breakfasts, snacks, drinks, and a take away breakfast one morning as we headed back to the airport.  This hotel was not in the best location, but it had all the comforts of home.

As soon as we arrived to the hotel we stored our bags and our Tuk Tuk driver picked us up for a city tour.  The boys love the tuk tuk.  We were all so tired but this kinda woke us right up, and gave us a good overview of the city.  I think it was around 3 hours, and he was great at mixing it up with stops for the boys, parks, and snacks, etc.  He dropped us off for lunch in a seafood spot.  I wish I could remember the name but was too jet lagged.  We went back to our room after lunch and took about a two hour nap.

We got a taxi and went up to Pharmacy Lisbon which is a cute spot, former pharmacy, for snacks and drinks.  Then we went down to Rocco for dinner.  This is an absolute must visit while you’re there- even to just pop in to look at the interiors.  You can totally pop in for a drink or ice cream, if you don’t want to have a full blown meal there.  Though we highly suggest the seafood bar!  Afterward we meandered down and walked back toward our hotel.  We went into Time Out Lisbon Market, which is like this fun fancy food court that’s huge, and has all of the best chefs little bites there.  It’s such a fun atmosphere!  That was our first full day in Lisbon, and we went back to the hotel …. and had an incredible nights sleep.

Wes slept for 13 hours!  We had a fun tour planned, but when we got in the day before I was able to cancel it because I didn’t want to have to wake up super early and have us drag the rest of the day.  So for our second day in Lisbon we went to the castle.  Boys enjoyed it, and the views here are some of the best we saw this trip.  We went into a cute coffee shop, then took a taxi to the market. Lots of antiques here, and hand made tiles.  It was a treat to see it all.  We went to Tagide for dinner that night, which was delicious.

It was a quick trip as we got up and went to Malaga the next day… but it was a nice little popover to get adjusted to the time.  We didn’t have hardly any jet lag by the time we arrived with our friends in Marbella.

I linked all of my favorite spots and places I wanted to visit via google maps.