Travel Budget: a long weekend in Portugal

After spending just over a week in Morocco, we took advantage of a long layover in Lisbon on our way back home to the States. We only had 3 days/3 nights in Portugal, yet were still able to visit two major cities. It's a lot to cram into a short period of time and was quite the whirlwind, but we loved every minute of it. 

Whenever, we have the opportunity to do a long layover in a new place, we take it. And this proved to be the perfect way to visit the country of Portugal on a Budget because we didn't have to worry about the most expensive travel cost...the flights. Here's a breakdown of our real life budget for a weekend in Portugal below...

day trip diaries: Sintra Portugal

 Whether at home or far away, I love a good day trip because it's the perfect way to explore. While doing a long layover in Lisbon, we decided to take a day trip out to Sintra-the city of fairytale castles. You could easily spend a week in Sintra and not have enough time to tour all the palaces. 

It definitely took a bit of effort to make it to Sintra using public transport. We walked from our hostel to the train station, did an hour long train ride, and then shared a 30 minute taxi before finally arriving at the famed colorful Instagram worthy Pena Palace.

a long layover in Lisbon

With traveling to Morocco in Africa, we had to take several flights from the states. On the way home, we were passing though Lisbon Portugal-a place that has always been on the top of my bucket list because who could resist this colorful city? So I decided to have us stop here on a long layover. 

Not only did stopping in Lisbon give us a chance to experience a new country together, it also broke things up so that we didn't have a crazy 24hour+ travel day. It was an easy decision and the best choice to make. Here's what we did with one day in Lisbon...

Like most major cities, Lisbon is broken down in several major neighbors. We split our day between the most picturesque of them all...Amalfa, the Barrio Alto, and our unexpected favorite...Belem.

We started our morning in Belem, stopping into Pasteis de Belem to pick up the classic pasties de nata that Lisbon in famous for. We also grabbed some Starbucks and just had the most relaxing morning stroll through the park eating our pastries and sipping on lattes. 

just back from Europe & Africa

 We are just back from an incredible trip of a lifetime, spending the holidays traveling through Morocco and Portugal. And when I say "just back", I mean that we only arrived home maybe an hour ago…enough time to start a load of laundry and shower off the travels of the day.