There are moments in life that get packaged into “A Tale” rather than just “a story”. You tell it practically the same way each time you share it, and you tend to share it a lot. Each new person you meet, they’re going to hear your Tales as part of the get-to-know-you process. Here is our tale of meeting our city for the first time.

We could roll back time reaaaaally far to get to the beginning of this thread; like all the way to our first inkling of moving. When we were kinda-sorta serious about moving to Portugal but no firm plans at all, one of the things we kept chewing on was when we were going to actually pull up stakes and go. A lot of that was “when can we afford it” and “when can we logistically manage it” and so on, but a thought began to percolate for me. We were moving to a new city, in a new country, knowing basically nothing about them. The culture would be different, the customs, the food, everything. So, how could we increase the chance that we’d like being there? And the answer I came up with was “go at Christmas time.” Not that Lisa and I are particular Christmas lovers, but you can’t ignore how the seasonal cheer ramps up. Downtown will be covered in lights. Music everywhere. People generally rolling friendliness saves with advantage. (Sorry, non-nerds.) Yeah, that seemed like the best way to stack the deck in our favor.

So a hundred dominoes falling later, we actually went to San Francisco for Thanksgiving in 2021 with portions of Lisa’s family, then caught our flight from SFO to Lisbon. We got to our first night airbnb, then into our apartment the next day. We were absolutely pooooped. Exhausted. But, we’d heard from the Braga American immigrants group that the municipal tree lighting festivity would be going on that night and the immigrants would grab a table at Café Vianna to catch the goings on. (To my fellow immigrants reading this in 2025 and beyond: yes, that’s right, the entire crowd of immigrants that night fit around a 10-top at Café Vianna. How times change, right?) It seemed like a good way to meet people and also just crack the ice on seeing what we’d got ourselves into. We left our apartment around 7 or so and made the 15-ish minute walk to downtown.

That’s how long it took me to fall in love with this place. 15 minutes.

Our old apartment was on Rua Dom Pedro V, which goes through a couple of quick name changes before becoming Avenida Central; don’t worry about the details if you don’t get this, all that matters is it was a straight line walk for us to end up at the fountain for the tree lighting. You hit the pedestrian area halfway there, and that’s when it started. Picturesque family scenes as the locals started gathering for the festivities. This was late 2021, remember, so things were juuuuust starting to loosen up in public spaces. They hadn’t even had the tree lighting the year prior, and attendance was relatively sparse but the people who were showing up seemed extra-excited to be reconnecting with their community. The air was crisp, the lights were on all up and down the pedestrian zone… it was, in a word, perfect. It was exactly what you’d want from the start of the holiday season. The gathering at the cafe was as warm a welcome as two new arrivals could hope for, and we’re friends with, I think, everybody we met that night.

The best part to me is that none of this is revisionist history. As we were walking back to our apartment at the end of the night we talked about what a great night it was, how much we loved the experience and the people that we met. Looking back, even knowing that we basically psyched ourselves out (picking the best possible time to “meet” our new home, going to festive occasions etc…) we still feel like it was a perfect first impression. And it seems to have worked, because here we are.

Lisa often plans our trips. (This is all me this time, my bride is “on assignment”…) She’s great at it, and she likes doing it. There are specific moments in the planning process that I play a key role in, but she has said for years that in another life she would have been a travel agent, so mostly I stay out of her way. That said, who doesn’t like taking a break once in a while. So, this whole trip was my baby, soup to nuts. Flights, lodging, restaurants, I took all of it off her plate. (I am not trying to play the hero here; if you know me well this should sound more ominous than heroic.) I learned everything from her so really there isn’t a lot of difference in me doing. Excceeeepppt, I am unhealthily attracted to the corners of maps. There are a couple of spots I’ve had my eye on for years, and this trip was an ideal opportunity to check out the Isle of Man.

Granted, the “ideal opportunity” still involved some careful timing of multiple ferries and three different cities; when you’re dealing with micro-nations you have to grade on a curve, ok? Still, the pieces of the trip were dovetailing nicely. We landed in Dublin like we said last time, and took a bus to Belfast. Next we’d be taking the “Isle of Man Steam Packet” to Douglas on the Isle of Man and then ending up on another… er… steam packet?… to Dublin. What is a steam packet, you ask? Well, it goes back to the 16th century and… whatever, it’s an antiquated term for the ships that brought mail and stuff to the island, and now it’s your typical ferry for cars and people. The trip takes 2-3 hours depending on which leg you’re talking about; there are also flights but at least one member of my family doesn’t care for really small airplanes. So, what’s the deal with the Isle of Man? What’s the attraction?

My dirty secret is that I knew very little about the place before we made our plans to go. I first poked around it years ago along with places like Inishmore and Islay (both small islands although not nations). What I knew back then was that it had a scattering of the old megalithic sites we enjoy visiting, aaaaannd they speak English. However, by the time I was actually setting this trip up I knew that the weather was that same crisp, cool weather as the rest of the British Isles, the terrain looked absolutely beautiful, and there were just enough historical curiosities to keep us interested if we end up feeling tourist-y. Plus, there’s the curiosity of the “nation” of the Isle of Man. Even more than Ireland or Scotland, Isle of Man exists in a liminal state, with its own governing body and kinda-sorta self rule, but they use the pound as their currency and still kind of “collective bargain” with Great Britain, e.g. they also are not part of the European Union. They have leveraged their strange legal existance to become a tax haven, not that this pays off for the average tourist.

We arrived in the capital town of Douglas, picked up our rental car, and headed for Port St. Mary on the southern end of the island. We were booked into a charming bed & breakfast, Carrick Rooms, which was honestly one of the nicer places we’ve stayed in quite awhile. Charming hosts, a comfortable room, and centrally located in walking distance to dining and transport. We didn’t use the car at all on at least one of our days. Instead, we checked off an extra bucket list item thanks to a famous literary inspiration – a genuine steam engine. Tell you all about it…. shortly.

One of the habits we’ve been trying to break is our tendency to go to our old favorites, revisiting favorite places throughout the world rather than branching out and trying new delights. In 2024 we made it to two countries we’d never been to before (Austria and the Netherlands) and poked around in bits of Portugal that we hadn’t been to, in particular the Alentejo region. That being said, we absolutely do have favorites that, for one reason or another, keep calling to us. This past summer, we spent a couple of weeks in London house-sitting for friends of friends, and since we’ve been to London before we named that series of blog posts “London 2024” to differentiate it from other trips to London. Surely that would be enough to tell them apart, right?

Right?

Turns out, nope. John had been seeing notices and rave reviews for an exhibition at the National Gallery that was bringing together works by Vincent Van Gogh from all over the world in what was being touted as a “once in a generation” event. Turns out those words are catnip for ole John boy; see Exhibit A, our detour to Florence for a similarly-described display of the works of Donatello. Still, we’d been to London plenty already, and tickets were going to be tricky to get for such a popular event, so it just sort of sat in the back of his mind, lurking for just the right moment to pounce.

Cut to an idle conversation with our friends Susan; the exhibition came up as a bit of trivia, not an invitation. Susan, however, thought it sounded mighty fine, and you may recall that Susan has already joined us for a theater-crawl through the West End once this year. That one little snowflake kicked off an avalanche of planning that had us putting together a holiday hop to London for Christmas time. Eep! Let’s be honest, though, it was hardly a hard sell to get us on that plane; London is an easy town to have a good time in.

And so, dark and early on the 22nd we hitched a ride with Susan to good ole Oh Pee Oh (OPO, or Porto Airport if you prefer) for a morning Ryanair flight that had us in London by noon, even accounting for the commuter train in from the airport. We checked into our usual haunt, the Hyatt Place London City East, which we just think of us the Hyatt in Whitechapel. We don’t own stock or anything, but we probably should; it’s not “the best” at anything but hits our sweet spot for price, convenience, and reasonable amenities. With just a little more time than it took to drop our bags we hopped back on to the Underground and made for the West End, thence to take in our first show, Hadestown.

Funny thing is, Lisa was excited to see this. If Lisa was told to list 20 facts about herself on a sheet of paper, “doesn’t like musicals” would probably make the cut; it’s just a thing thought of as “true” for her. And yet, she will also readily admit that the list of exceptions is slowly but steadily growing on her, to the point that her and musicals is kind of like John and drinking: it used to be an easy “nuh-unh” but now is more of a “well, maybe a little” kind of thing. Anyway, when the three of us were talking about possibilities and we described Hadestown in the broadest possible way (“Orpheus and Eurydice, with kind of a rock/bluesy music vibe” she instantly said it sounded interesting to her. And so we went. And so we loved it. All of us, absolutely had a ball with it. It turned out John hadn’t even described the music all that well but it didn’t matter. The performances, the music, the way they told a 3000 year old story in a fresh way, it all just worked. None of us had ever heard much about Hadestown until maybe a year or so ago, but (setting aside its 2010 pre-history in the summer stock-bestrewn hills of Vermont) it’s been in production on Broadway and the West End since 2019. Go fig. In any case, it was an easy “thumbs up” from all three of us, if you’re looking for a recommendation.

After the play we were getting tired, but fortunately Lisa had found a tip for a restaurant just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel, so we had a bite at Amber Restaurant and called it a night. We had another full day waiting for us on the morrow.

Amber was a delight! A super quick walk from our hotel (and therefore the Aldgate East station), its tucked in behind a new apartment building, past the Escape Room place with axe throwing and neon -infused indoor golf. The space is modern and welcoming, with a focus on sustainable woods and lighting that invites conversation.

The menu focuses on Mediterranean in the broadest sense, with almost everything made on the premises. Plates come in small and large, and guests are encouraged to share with one another, which we were happy to do. We tried the breadbasket (pita, sourdough. and challah), hummus gnocchi (in a sage butter sauce), kofte (bulghur and lentil, rolled in baby gem lettuce), lamb meatballs (served with labneh, burnt aubergine, sumac onions, and pickled peppers), smoked potatoes, and grilled chicken (marinaded in preserved lemons and herbs, serves with crispy onions, aleppo and zough). They offer mocktails, a seasonal rotation of wine and beer, and the usual other drinks.

The bread was fantastic, fresh and tasty. We loved the hummus gnocchi, smoked potatoes, and grilled chicken. The kofte was cold and we found it unappetizing. The lamb meatballs would be worth offering again and we wish we’d had room to try the Torched Seabream. We will definitely be going here on future trips to London!

The one thing we did manage to keep on the calendar was a dinner with some friends at La Porta, an Italian restaurant so named because it is near one of the city’s most well-known monuments, the Arco da Porta Nova. The arch has a history that goes back to the early 1500s, but has been more or less in its present state since the late 1800s. La Porta probably isn’t any of ours favorite restaurant, but it’s “fine” and we mostly chose it as a launching pad for a “festive tour of the holiday decorations downtown.” Which wouldn’t need to be in quotes if it hadn’t been quite so cold and rainy.

Nevertheless, we persisted. Wandering up the central core of the historical district, we poked around the (cold… wet… deserted…) streets and took in the light show.

Even if some of us *cough* initially made grumbly noises about staying out in some filthy weather, we still couldn’t help but have a good time; a convivial meal and a stroll with friends, pointing out little oddities we’d catch or telling stories we were reminded of by poking around. Just another reminder that we’re living a very different, very rewarding life here in Braga.

Since we don’t tell a lot of driving stories, indulge us for a moment while we tell you of the wonder that is Via Verde. This is a national pay service for cars that puts a sensor thingy in your vehicle (you may be familiar with this tech if you have turnpikes or other toll highways in your area), but a surprising variety of services are also tied into it. Municipal parking lots? Sure. Charging your electric vehicle? Why not! Ferry crossings? But of course. Paying at drive-thru pharmacies? Weird, but also sure! It’s a pretty cool thing, especially since it covers the entire country. Should you ever rent a car in Portugal and the agent asks you if you want Via Verde, the answer is “yes.” And if they don’t ask, probably because they don’t enjoy explaining this to Portugal noobs, make sure to ask for it. You’ll pay a few euros up front, and then a couple of invoices will roll in a month or two down the road once Via Verde settles up with your rental agency. Totes worth it.

Aaaaaannyway, armed with a Via Verde-enabled rental, we pointed ourselves northward and beat feet. The drive itself is nothing special – it’s national highway all the way to the border and then similar roads on the other side. The whole drive is only an hour and a half give or take depending on the traffic. There aren’t even any interesting connections, as Vigo is right there on the highway. This meant that it was easy to get our first look at this quaint little town… which is significantly more metropolitan than Braga! It’s funny, the only time that Vigo has ever come up in conversation for us it’s been people talking about getting away to the beach or else visiting the “charming Christmas market”, and it somehow never entered the picture that the population is significantly larger while, at the same time, the population density is nearly triple that of Braga. The net effect is that compared to our home town’s almost suburban vibe, Vigo comes across like a big-boy city. Whoops. This doesn’t “matter” of course, it was just a funny realization.

We scoot through part of downtown on our way to our hotel and start to get glimpses of the market. It’s early afternoon at this point so there aren’t any lights, and being just past the lunch hours a lot of the sidewalks are rolled up. It was kind of like being in Las Vegas at 10 AM on a Sunday – yeah, things are still going on, but it’s pretty mundane. We make it into our digs at a Marriott right on the water, which might sound lah-dee-dah but we were along the part of the waterfront that doubles as a perpetual county fair, complete with bumper cars. Think less Club Med and more Atlantic City. We got settled in and then made the short walk to one edge of the market.

Confession time (from John at the moment): I had no idea what to expect from a “Christmas market”. I’ve never seen one, I’ve barely talked about them with anybody. Braga does one but by all accounts it’s pretty modest. So color me surprised but a little giddy that my first exposure to the market in Vigo was… a half-mile lane stacked with street food vendors, craft vendors, street food vendors, pop-up wine tasting “rooms” and, dare I say, street food vendors? We were actually pretty hungry and dinner wasn’t until 9 or so (hola, Spain :p) so we dove into these amazing … um… things. Basically, take “pigs in a blanket” only use full-size chorizo and scale up the bun accordingly. It was bonkers good. Lisa had an empanada variant that she also super enjoyed (our friends both joined me in hot sausage & bun goodness). There was a lot of other nummy-looking goodness, but the one thing that left a lasting impression were these giant palmiers. Like, as wide as my forearm giant. Crazy good.

Since dinner was going to be so late (hola, Spain) we all went back to the hotel to reset and relax a bit. Oh what a difference a couple of hours makes. Our walk to Marabu (the restaurant du dinner) went through a couple of major avenues in town, and now the lights were on. [pictures]

Dinner was at Marabu, courtesy of a recommendation from good friends who spend a lot of time in Vigo. Short version: our friends are good at recommendations. Although, we almost didn’t find out. Despite our late reservation (hola, Spain) we were actually the first people there, and the restaurant gave almost every appearance of being closed. After a few minutes we were ready to bail but one of us spotted movement in the darkness inside so we abided with something resembling patience. Eventually they did open, and we were sooo glad that we stayed. The star of our meal was a slow-cooked ribs (“slow” as in “twenty-six hours”… hubba hubba) shareable entree. When it was brought out our server broke out these wooden Wolverine claws and gently shredded the meat, which was obligingly sliding off the bones by that point. Thus prepared, we rolled tacos at the table and had little bites of heaven for awhile. The atmosphere was cozy and elegant, the service good and unobtrusive… I’d say we give it an eight-thumbs-up recommendation, just don’t make a reservation close to opening. We lingered over dinner so long that, combined with being a Sunday, we actually had the lights mostly to ourselves as we made our way back to the hotel. It was nice to be able to linger over the displays without feeling like we were blocking traffic.

And with that, our little one-day excursion to Vigo was over. We made it back with no problems the next day and (bonus!) we had a car to do some bulky shopping for a day. All four of us came away from the trip already brainstorming what our next, longer visit would be like, so it’s safe to say we had a gay old time.

We are celebrating by giving ourselves a bit of a break from this blog. Partly it’s because, as much fun as this has been for us, every now and then we get to a Sunday evening and one of us goes “oh #*&^@! We need to finish the blog!” And the other part of it is that, regardless of the time lag between our travels and our blog posts, we are actually all caught up on our traveling! There’s nothing in the can. Zip. Nada. No need to fret, we’ll be back on the first Monday in January, 2024, with fresh insights, tales, and ideas. Plus, we’ll have been to one or two places by then, with more on the horizon. Until then — take care, spend time with loved ones as much as you can, and we hope you have at least as much fun as the dancing frog in the picture!

All of these items are in our active travel repetoire, if you will.

Water Bottle. The travel world has started taking these seriously, and it’s about time. We carried re-usable bottles for years because buying new plastic ones on the regular was slowly driving Lisa just a little bit . . . mad . . . about the waste and cost. Frankly, ours are from a deli in SFO, and no other airport we’ve been in sells them. (Upon further review, it seems they are a generic product that they offer to customize for businesses, so it’ll be hit or miss where you may find them.) So you’ll likely have to get yours elsewhere. They now come in .5l and larger sizes, even insulated to keep your water very very cold. Some travelers get a kind that come with filters and purification tablets, to keep themselves very safe; not a bad idea in some parts of the world (or if you have a tender tummy). While not ubiquitous, more and more airports seem to have refilling stations for water bottles – if they exist, you’ll typically find them near the water fountains and sometimes even *in* the fountain housing as a combined unit.

Carrying a reusable water bottle is better for the environment and more cost effective than buying bottled water. Bottled-water production in the US alone in 2007 required somewhere between 32 million and 54 million barrels of oil, according to a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters (PDF). That’s roughly 2,000 times as much as the energy cost of producing tap water, and bottled-water sales in the US have grown to 15.3 billion gallons as of 2021, from 8.76 billion gallons in 2007. Bottled water is also a thousand times more expensive than tap water. Add in the fact that in 2014 nearly 64% of all bottled water sold in the US was nothing more than pricey, prepackaged tap water (PDF), and it becomes difficult to deny the value of a well-made reusable water bottle. No matter what ***never forget to empty the bottle before security, we’ve seen agents make the traveler throw their bottle away***

Packing Cubes. We love, love, LOVE, our compression packing cubes. Packing cubes, especially the compression ones, are a great lightweight solution to organizing your gear and reducing clutter in your luggage. Ours come in two sizes: small and large. The small cubes hold 6pr underwear and bras or 3 t-shirts, rolled. That’s enough for a week of travel (presuming you wear a set :-). The large size holds 2-3 bottoms (fabric pants, shorts, or skirts) and another 2-3 tops, laid flat. The more fabric the less you can pack. Our small (European compliant) carry-ons can hold two large and two small packs along with either a toiletry bag or pair of shoes.

Using compression cubes helps us travel for weeks with just our carry-ons; it’s one of our best “secret” weapons. There are many manufacturers, we chose Eagle Creek because of good reviews and they were the least expensive. YMMV.

Backpack. This may not be for everyone, but if you travel with electronics or have a bad back, we strongly recommend a good backpack. Our backpacks (John’s is the same brand, but larger to accommodate his beast of a laptop) [Editor’s note: RAHR!] are just right. They fit under seats and in overhead compartments easily, and have counted as “personal bag” on all the airlines we’ve traveled. The interior has a specially padded compartment for your larger electronics, space for personal items (like wallets, glasses, etc.) and comfortable padded straps. They are super spacious! As an example, Lisa’s bag is 44 x 32 x 17 cm and typically holds her 17″ laptop, kindle, passport holder, camera bag (with a Nikon body and two lenses), water bottle, snacks, power and charging cords, paper journal, jewelry pouch, scarf, comb, travel toiletry bag, and wallet. While they can’t “ride” on your luggage (you have to wear it), its a balanced load and won’t wear you down, like carrying a bag in your hands, or on one side (like a tote) will.

Hanging Toiletry Bag. We have two of these, different sizes to accomodate different-length trips, and have found them incredible useful over many trips. Able to hang in almost any bathroom (or nearby) they free up counter space, or provide utility when there isn’t a place to put anything (I’m looking at you The Wilder.) There is space for scissors, tweezers, or barrettes in the zipper pouch at the top. The first main compartment holds bottles (like the silicone ones we travel with, below) and suchlike. The remaining two compartments hold everything else, from full-size brushes to dental items. While its best for checking, its not hard to put liquids in the clear bag to go through security, then use this bag for the rest of your travel.

No Leak Liquid Containers. There’s nothing worse than arriving at your destination and discovering that your toiletries have leaked and your clothes are a mess. And we’ve all watched in frustration as there was one person holding up the line at security because they were carrying oversized liquids. (Pro tip, they will not accept your large bottle because it’s only 1/3 full.) One way to prevent this is to get a set of silicone, leak-proof containers. Our set (not the one pictured, but very similar) of three (3) 3-oz bottles are made of flexible food-grade, BPA-free silicone. They are very easy to fill and clean and have never — in multiple trips over ten years — leaked.

Luggage Tags. You can go the “pink duct tape strapping your suitcase” route if you like, of course, just like you can tie scarves around the handle of your bag. We like to go a “slightly” subtler route and roll with very bright, patterned luggage tags. We’ve never had the slightest difficulty getting out bags mixed up with anyone else’s, except for that one time where we simultaneously flew off in different directions and John landed in South Carolina with Lisa’s bathing suits while Lisa landed in Hawai’i with John’s khakis. Aaaaaanyway… They’re easy, usually quite durable, and relatively low maintenance compared to the other usual options.

Shawl/ Scarf. This one may seem a little off-base, but bear with me. A good quality shawl will fill a lot of roles — warmth being only one. You can lay it over your head to make it dark enough to sleep. When added to an otherwise “fine” outfit, it can lift it right into “good enough for a Michelin star restaurant” territory. They fold up into a bit of nothing, and once you start using them, you’ll be a convert.

Cable Organizer. This item came to us relatively late, and we’re kicking ourselves for not getting one sooner. Our travels have required more and more plugs/cables as the years have gone on. Phone chargers, the little mini speaker we bring for white noise, connectors to get photos off of cameras… they add up. Keeping them in one of these beats the heck out of the little zip baggies that John was using before. And besides, if all the cables have a place in the organizer it’s easy to know when you’ve forgotten to pack something.

Adapters for Power. Kind of feels like a “duh”, but there are a lot of solutions in the marketplace now; if you take a moment to figure out exactly what you need to plug in you may be surprised to find something very specific (like the device pictured above) that does everything you need with a minimum of sockets. The notion of “enough” sockets in a hotel room is wildly flexible; we’ve been in places where there was exactly one usable plug, which was tricky – see our comments on cable organizers, above. John actually harbors a fantasy of finding a surge protector that has USB ports and handles the adapter issue by having female sockets of differing countries and has models that plug into sockets all over the world. Alas, it’s adapters for now.

We encourage you to buy direct from the manufacturer when possible, or from a local business owner rather than the big name stores; it’s not always possible of course, but still worth a try. Note that the images are from all over the ‘net and not meant to endorse any one product over another.