What do you know about Portugal?

Things I know about Portugal…

*crickets chirping*

Not much.

I know it’s attached to Spain. (I lived in Spain in high school, so one would hope I would at least know that.) I know it has good wine. I know there was an 80-foot wave in Portugal that was the largest wave ever surfed by a human.*

*I know this because my husband mentioned it, but when he talks about surfing (which is all the time) I fall asleep on the inside but with my eyes open and while nodding my head so I look attentive. But seriously, watch the video. It’s insane. Makes me so nervous.

 

So, when a friend—who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Portugal—said she was going to Portugal for a month with her husband and two young daughters, I thought: cool???

Then she emailed me because she knew I would love the looks of Portugal. The colors. The tiles. And the textures. And she was right! Just look at how groovy it is!

My friend rented a house in Lagos, which is a laid-back beach town, as she described it. It’s near the southern tip of Portugal, about the same latitude as Sevilla, Spain, in the Algarve region. Lagos is known for its fortressed old town, rocky cliffs, and beaches on the Atlantic. It’s also pronounced “lah-goose,” which is what kills me about Portuguese.

They climbed these super steep steps—with kids, mind you—that lead to cove of Praia do Camilo:

Like a local, she shopped for groceries at the market. Then day drank, tripped, and spilled said groceries.

She explained that “the awesome thing about Portugal is that it’s a mix of old school widowed Portuguese grandmas wearing all black for the rest of their lives in addition to young hipsters with trimmed beards and tight pants.” She described the house they rented as “legit old school. Clearly been in the family forever, probably same decorations! Same ceramic plates fastened to the wall!”

I love a good granny chic moment, so I was all about these plates and decorative tiles:

And in doing this post, I looked up some other things about Lagos, like this 16^th century wall that surrounds the old town:

These rock formations and radical beach scenes:

But I keep coming back to this house:

And now I know why everyone always seems to like Portugal, and why my friend thought I might, too. It’s the perfect combination of everything I love: old school-ness, pattern mixing, day drinking of wine (or anything, really), and maximum lezure!

Advertisement