{"id":8922,"date":"2017-04-06T18:22:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T18:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/?p=8922"},"modified":"2017-04-20T01:16:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T01:16:00","slug":"pousadas-of-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/2017\/04\/pousadas-of-portugal\/","title":{"rendered":"Our amazing stay in the Pousadas of Portugal!"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Peter and I took an amazing trip to Portugal where we stayed in the Pousadas of Portugal, chain of historical and luxury hotels. Included in our trip was a rental car (our little Fiat was great but the GPS left a lot to be desired!) for five\u00a0days and you could stay in one\u00a0to five\u00a0pousadas depending how much travelling you would like to do. This was our ‘third honeymoon’, and would definitely recommend this tour package for a first, third or tenth\u00a0honeymoon!<\/p>\n

Our first stay was in the small city of\u00a0Viana do Castelo at the Pousada de Monte de Santa Luiza. After leaving the airport and getting to the pousada in the dark of night, we woke to the most stunning view of the\u00a0Basilica de Santa Luiza. It is designed in the shape of a greek cross with\u00a0granite and marble construction and gorgeous stained glass windows. We booked two days here and we enjoyed the sights and the beach\u00a0in the northern part of Portugal.<\/p>\n

Our second\u00a0stay was in Guimar\u00e3es, the\u00a0‘birthplace of the Portuguese nationality’. It was not a far drive… only about two\u00a0hours, so we thought. We made a pit stop in Amares for lunch and we didn’t think it would take us too far off the beaten track. Oops… \u00a0we had issues with the GPS again and had a round-about\u00a0mountain\u00a0drive for an hour. It was beautiful but I only took one photo, I thought we might be lost forever! Some of the roads we were on were only as wide as our tiny little Fiat. We were relieved when we reached our next stop,\u00a0the Pousada de Santa Marinha,\u00a0an ancient 12th century Augustinian Monastery. We found a quiet place to chill on the grounds… where monks once walked, we had a beer. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Poudasa number three\u00a0was the Pousada de\u00a0Rainha de Santa Isabel in\u00a0Estremoz, a castle from the 12th century. Because of the previous day’s misadventure we decide to stay on the main road as we had a four\u00a0hour drive ahead of us. The castle was a absolutely ‘marble-ous’ \ud83d\ude42 in fact Estremoz is well known for it’s marble, even the cobble stones and white wash on the buildings were made from it.<\/p>\n

Our final pousada was a short drive to Alcacer do Sal where we stayed in the Pousada D. Afonso II. This one was a mix of original structure\u00a0of the 5000 year old castle with ultra modern updates. After a little pool time we walked beside the Sado River and had\u00a0dinner under a strikingly clouded sky.<\/p>\n

Our pousada tour was now over but we still had two\u00a0days in Portugal. We drove to Lisbon and said goodbye to our trusty little car. We were now in the heart of the city and able to use the metro, buses and even a ferry to get around. One of the highlights was visiting Cristo Rei, the Christ Statue of Lisbon. Our hotel was passable but\u00a0centrally located and\u00a0we didn’t spend much time there. In fact we messed up on the reservation and arrived a day late. Since our flight home was early we decided not to book another day there. So our final day in Portugal we walked and saw every sight (and Peter managed to get a Euro\u00a0Cup game watched) until midnight, then went and crashed at the airport… always an adventure. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Portugal you have my heart!\"\"<\/a>
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Peter and I took an amazing trip to Portugal where we stayed in the Pousadas of Portugal, chain of historical and luxury hotels. Included in our trip was a rental car (our little Fiat was great but the… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[17,4,5],"tags":[116,117,115],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8922"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9575,"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922\/revisions\/9575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.marlajenkinsphotography.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}