2021 Portugal Travel Tips

We spend the month of October in Portugal, and learned a few things that were not quite clear in the guidebooks. I share them here:

Discounts: Most subways, trains, museums, offer senior (65+) discount up to 50% -- sometimes requiring i.d. (drivers license okay); or Student or Child discounts as well.

SIMcards for phones: evidently only Vodafone maintains an official shop at the Lisbon airport: I bought 2 cards @20euros each, providing 100minutes of talk and 5gb data in Europe, for 30 days...perfect timing for us! Lycamobile offers cheaper deals on Portugal-only cards: they have card-tables set up at busy metro stations (if I had known, I would have bought their deal).

Duty-Free On Arrival: Lisbon airport duty-free sells within the arrival area (contrary to internet statements), so you can wait and buy duty-free in the Lisbon airport, where it’s cheaper than the US. In any case, the customs officials seemed quite loose though watchful. And in-Europe passengers were mixed with non-Schengen passengers.

Departure: note that all departing passengers are funneled through the primary duty-free shop to entice us to buy everything quickly -- but several other nice shops are located inside the secure area. Also, remember that passport-checkout (for outside-Europe flights) happens just before the gates -- in our case there was no queue, but need to be prepared in case of a long queue to get your passport stamped. At our US-bound flight there were no additional searches, but several i.d. checks and obvious security presence.

Public transport: all drivers accept cash and make change for immediate tickets. Some can even accept creditcard payment. Metro in Lisbon uses turnstile entry and exit -- tap your metrocard on entry and exit. Metro in Porto uses European honor system -- tap your metrocard upon entry to each platform (occasional auditors will check your card). A similar system applies to the streetcars in Lisbon, and suburban trains in Lisbon and Porto.

Comments

EUA: tanto estrago em tão pouco tempo

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Fleeing Trump, Americans go to Portugal

Fleeing Trump, Americans go into exile in Portugal. “I'm afraid to go back” Not only minorities feel threatened by the Trump administration. Three couples, a mother and an academic tell us why they chose to live in Portugal. Some say: the American dream is over. The above is today's headline article in our favorite trusted newspaper in Portugal, O Publico . It's a centrist newspaper, owned by a big supermarket corporation. Let's combine this with the recent news that Portugal's Air Force is now shifting away from its planned purchase of F-35 jets. Even though Trump has not even mentioned Portugal in his various diatribes against former allies, Portugal and the rest of Europe are reeling from the attacks. We hope it has the ironic effect of freeing Europe from American dominance and improving the chances for centrist leadership (against Trump-like parties that have been gaining prominence). The original text follows: Em fuga de Tru...

Yikes! Russian Chocolate!

The other day we chanced upon a Slavic grocery store. We went inside, marveled at all the products from various eastern european countries, from Czechia to Poland to Yugoslavia to Russia to Kazakhstan. I grabbed a chocolate bar... and now I realize that it's Russian, imported via Germany. The ingredients list is written in Russian, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek; and a separate ingredients sticker pasted over it in German. No Portuguese or Spanish or English. Hmm. How did it get here? And what sort of sanctions are imposed on Russian confectioners? The chocolate itself is just okay, nothing special.

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