When we first heard that there was a museum of coaches in Lisbon, we were perplexed. First, it had to be explained (to John at least) that we were talking about transportation compartments pulled by horses, not athletic team leaders. Then, it had to be explained that they weren’t kidding and there actually is such a thing as a coach museum. And then we had to learn that it is, in fact, one of the more impressive buildings in the entire city, dedicated entirely to a coach museum. (Well, and miscellaneous sundries.) And finally, when we first encountered the National Coach Museum, we learned the hard way that it is closed on Mondays. Whoops.

As relayed in our first sojourn to Lisbon, we stumbled upon the building with more than a little mix of surprise and suspicion. It is a huge building, designed by Brazilian architect – and Pritzker Prize winner – Paulo Mendes da Rocha. We don’t claim any special architectural expertise, but clearly this was a big gun that they brought out for their… coach museum. Learning this also blew a hole in my ginned-up theory that the museum was originally something else, and was repurposed so as not to have a huge derelict on the waterfront. Nope! The government raised funds, worked through committees, the whole 9 yards… for the coach museum.

So, ok, I’m leaning pretty heavily into the “coach museum can ya believe it?? herp derp” attitude, but here’s the thing: it was actually pretty cool! The coach sets date back several hundred years and are kept in fantastic condition. (There has to be extensive restoration to look this good, but I’m caring less and less about that as the years go by.) There are coaches that were crafted by the Portuguese, but some of the finest examples are French carriages that arrived here as the transportation for various princesses that were marrying into the Portuguese royal family. Still, Paris to Lisbon in horse-drawn carriage? Wooooof.

After walking the wildly impressive first hall, the second hall with its nearly uniform small, black carriages as engines were visible on the horizon just didn’t hold the same pizzazz. Car aficionados would probably get a kick out of it as a walk through of the early evolutionary stages of automobiles, but otherwise it was kind of a dud. Still, the first main hall with it’s twenty-ish examples from several centuries was, and I still can’t quite believe I’m saying this, entirely worth the visit. It’s great.

We have remarked before (probably here, certainly in conversation) that we have been much more thorough in our exploration of the greater European continent than we have been of our adopted home country. We’ve dug into the capitals of England, France, Italy, even Greece… more than we have the fair city of Lisbon. That all changed recently, when personal business required us to visit the U.S. Embassy in Portugal, located iiiiinnn…. that’s right, Lisbon. Since we had to make the effort to get there anyway, we decided to stretch the trip out a few days and actually poke around a bit. See the sights, that sort of thing. We consulted the oracles (aka our friends) to prioritize our options, then hit the road.

We’ve actually done a little bit of touristing in Lisbon before, but that trip was short on actual experiences and long on “peering through the locked gate” experiences. This time we double checked that thing we wanted to see were open on the days that we wanted to see them, the way real people do it. Our first item up for bid was the Museu Nacional do Azulejo, aka “the tile museum” to us English-speaking heathens. (That’s extra clever if you’ve read about the origins of the word “heathen“.) I suspect this is common knowledge but just in case: the Portuguese have a deep cultural appreciation for decorative ceramic tile that goes back hundreds of years. They aren’t unique in this but they are particularly well known for it. Decorative tile (“azulejo“) is to Portuguese culture what marble statues are to Italian. Thus it is hardly surprising that there is an intense gallery in the capital city dedicated to outstanding examples of this craft, both from a technical standpoint as well as examples of cultural significance.

While there are numerous exhibits within the converted convent, we felt you could broadly think of the entire museum on a continuum, with “historically significant” on one end and “just plain beautiful” on the other. The earliest examples go back to the mid-1400s but, kind of unsurprisingly if you stop to think about it, they aren’t really the peak of the craft. It’s fascinating to see how far back this art form goes, but the techniques have advanced so far since then, as has the evolution of technique in craftsmanship, that the early examples are just kind of plain looking out of context. (NOT saying they aren’t worth the examination, just that… well, if you were tiling your house tomorrow, you probably aren’t going for reclaimed tiles from 1491 unless you’re a history buff.) By the time you get to the samples of the last few decades there are some truly spectacular works of art.

Click on the images below to see just a few of the exhibitions in more detail. Which, alas, is about as good as it can get for you for the near future, as the museum closed for renovation at the beginning of November with an anticipated re-opening in June of 2026. Fingers crossed!

Us being us, we still had a bit of a double agenda for the trip. John had scheduled a trip back to the States to see his folks in South Carolina, and the flight was out of Lisbon. Once we realized (which was, like, immediately) that he’d be leaving straight after Lisa’s birthday, it was pretty easy to envision a long weekend in Lisbon before John took off and Lisa eased her way back home on the train. In the end, what we had was about a day and a half to loll about and take some things in. Definitely not time to “see Lisbon”, but at least we’d get our feet wet. And so, dear readers, what do you think Lisa and John did in a city they hadn’t visited before so they could get acquainted with it? You guessed it: hop-on hop-off, baby!

From talking to friends, I think some of you still think we’re being ironic about the hop on hop off experience; we assure you that we are not. Yes, it’s an icon of pure tourism, stripped of any sense of actual engagement of the culture. No, you don’t really experience visiting any of the major sites of the city you’re in (at least, not while on the bus). We would never say it should be the only thing you do when you visit a city. But, we’ve used them in a half-dozen places or so by now, and 100% of the time we’re satisfied with the fact that we have been given a meandering tour of the layout of the city and put some of the geography into context with what’s on the maps. Look at it from the opposite direction: when we first visited London in 2007 (which was our first trip out of North America, aw, what babies etc…) we were very proud of ourselves for getting a map of the Underground and navigating tube stops pretty efficiently by the end of our trip. On the other hand, we never made it to St. Paul’s Cathedral because it didn’t seem to line up with other places we wanted to visit, when in fact we spent our first morning (which we mostly twiddled our thumbs through waiting for a concert to start) about 100 yards from the entrance. Chalk it up to being tired and there being some tall buildings in between, but it’s a classic example of the map not being the territory. The tube stop listed as being the one to take for St. Paul’s was not listed on the Underground map as being the one we were at, and in fact was on a separate line, and so it looked difficult to get to. (“John, are you making excuses for why you made a dumb mistake?” I mean, maybe, but it’s still true. :p ) Aaaalll that to say, it’s never a bad idea to actually get a good, long, in-person look at the city you’re visiting.

One of the most fascinating things we saw was actually a museum that we *didn’t* visit, because a) we didn’t know it existed and b) it was closed the day we walked by. Nevertheless, the National Coach Museum captured our imagination. First of all, the very fact that it exists… come on, a national museum dedicated to … coaches? You may be thinking to yourself this is a translation error, that what they’re talking about is a transportation museum or something. Well feast your eyes:

Coaches, baybeeee. We didn’t even know this place existed. We saw it after having a disjointed visit to … well, what John thought was a museum about the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake but turned out to be essentially an amusement park attraction about the earthquake which apparently shakes the ever-loving crap out of you. We say “apparently” because the idea of it holds no appeal for either of us so we bailed. Walking out of that building, however, we spotted an incredibly modern and large building nearby.

It’s a seriously impressive building, and massive, and gave the impression of being a public edifice of central importance… which we guess it is? Our first guess about its origin turned out to be correct: it was originally a possession of the Portuguese royal family, who then bequeathed it to the city (always a shady dodge in our opinion for when royalty is tired of paying for upkeep on some of their stuff, but whatevs) and, apparently, is in fact a beloved institution. The museum, after all, is a post-fascism creation which means that to some extent the will of the people was required to get the dang thing erected. In any case, it may now be at the very top of places we want to visit when the chance presents itself again.

You might be thinking about now “that sounds like a busted day. One place wasn’t what you expected and you left, and the other wasn’t even open.” Weeeeelll… yes, except. Lisa had made a point of saying that she had been trying to embrace the moment over the big picture, (and John lets the wind lead him willy-nilly pretty easily) so it was a very pleasant day overall. The weather was just perfect, and the neighborhood we were futzing in is right on the water so we had excellent breezes and an intermittently lovely view. When those two things didn’t pan out, we shifted gears and went to a waterside seafood restaurant for a whole grilled fish (which was tasty, but the overall vibe was mezzo-mezzo and there won’t be a full review), then more walking along the water, and it was about then that we noticed the hop on hop off buses were driving on the very road that fronted us, so we figured out where to catch it, and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon that way.

As mentioned earlier, we were also marking Lisa’s birthday, which meant a couple of things. First of all, it meant that the Hyatt we were staying in upgraded our room without us even asking (apparently they have birthdays on file from being a member in their rewards program?) which put us in probably the nicest hotel room/suite we’ve ever had. Seriously, we were on a corner, with a huge veranda that ran the length of the suite on all sides, and the walls were floor-to-ceiling windows that could be opened wide. We caught gorgeous breezes in the evenings, it was wild. A small but complete kitchen, dining room AND separate living/sitting room, bedroom in an enclosed space of its own… it was bonkers. Thanks, Hyatt! We threw a dart at a restaurant in the heart of the city that was… fine, but once again not really worth digging down into the deets with you. (Yes, we hoped for more for a birthday meal, but the overall day had been so nice that it was fine.)

After dinner we meandered the back streets of Lisbon for awhile, just taking it all in (and getting a little lost :p) before finally arriving back on a main drag, from whence we hailed a ride and went back to the hotel. The final little treat was that the hotel had a beautiful little “Happy Birthday” desert treat and a bottle of champagne waiting when we got back; I had asked for the assist but you never know when it comes to hotels. Once again, hats off to the Lisbon Hyatt Regency. (To be clear, we aren’t even “top level” in their rewards club, they were just taking care of us. Kudos.) Another bit of evening taking the air on our super-deck, but we were aiming for an early night so John could catch decent Zs before jetting off. When all was said and done, we said our goodbyes and then bedded down (which was, yes, a little weird) but John left at about 4 AM to catch a cab to the airport. Lisa left at a much more reasonable time for the train station and returned home to Braga.

Last little note, should you ever need to know – the direct train service between Braga and Lisbon is nicely affordable and very comfortable. As opposed to the commuter lines (which also aren’t bad, honestly, just a little slower) you only stop in Porto. It’s a comfy ride that has you to your destination in a bit more than four hours.

For starters, we didn’t have ONE appointment this past Monday, we had two. Two appointments, but only half an hour apart. . . 30 minutes and 225 kilometers apart. How this happened will always be a mystery (although Lisa took an entertaining stab at trying to guess a few weeks ago) but that was the hand we were dealt. “Didn’t you try and get them changed?” you might very well ask, but here’s the thing: there was recently an election in Portugal, and one of the hot-button issues in the country was <drumroll> the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras! We can’t begin to explain why it was a problem, not the details anyway, but there was (and is, actually) a movement afoot to disband SEF and distribute it’s responsibilities throughout other agencies. Because things surrounding the agency were so fraught this past winter we were advised by many folks to just leave the appointments alone. Try to reschedule, they said, and there was a non-zero chance that our appointments would be pushed out several months. The odds might be low, but the stakes were enormous. We decided to make these appointments work.

The plan in a nutshell: Lisa took a train on Sunday afternoon to Lisbon. She got a hotel in the city, and from there she killed time until her 3:30PM appointment on Tuesday. MEANWHILE, John picked up a rental car on Tuesday morning, drove to the … er… town of Portalegre. (It’s a quaint little town, really, but for a 3-hour drive a fella might want something more) for his 3:00PM appointment. Fun fact: John had the times mixed up, and if not for an off-handed conversation with his dearest bride while killing time in a grocery store he would have com-PLETE-ly missed it. Yikes.

The very common advice given to folks in our situation is not to sweat your SEF appointment. If you were going to get turned down it would happen at the D7 stage, back in the United States; your documents are pretty thoroughly reviewed at that time. And here’s the kicker – the whole point of that review is to make sure everything is in order for your eventual SEF appointment. The D7 Visa, in and of itself, doesn’t really have many requirements to satisfy, they only put you through the ringer at that stage to weed out folks who would fail at the SEF level. While it feels like the D7 can be very demanding, it’s actually just the sieve that you’re being squeezed through in anticipation of the residency requirements. And so it follows, if you got your D7 (or other visa), your SEF appointment it’s probably going to be a piece of cake.

So, not to drag this out tooooo much, a tale of two appointments. John gets to the office in Portalegre about a half hour early. There are signs on the door advising visitors to wait outside until they are called, but a security guard sees him and waves him in. He is seen immediately. A nice lady with very little English (usual caveat applies: this is not a bad thing, we’re just being descriptive) communicates that she will simply take all the documents John brought, which include a bunch of extra stuff we weren’t sure we’d need. No problem, she seems to say. A few minutes later he is called over to have his picture taken and his index fingerprints scanned. A few minutes after that he is called up to pay and given a temporary copy of his residency document, and told that the actual card will arrive in the mail in two to four weeks. All told, he’s done in about 20 minutes and has basically zero interaction during the whole process. Lisa’s experience is slightly more complex – she is actually asked to present three documents (out of the 15 or so that we had prepared for each of us). Neither of us was asked about proof of residence / a current lease, which if you read our last post you know was a source of consternation for us. Oh well. Unsurprisingly the Lisbon office is busier than the one in East Bumble@#*(&@ and she takes maybe 30 minutes to get the same process finished.

In other words, the people giving advice are right, and it was a piece of cake for both of us. If you are reading this because you’re hoping to glean some guidance for your own SEF appointment, all we can say is this: over-prepared beats under-prepared, because there are stories of people being asked for more than we were, or that their documents were scrutinized with great diligence. Take nothing for granted. BUT, if you are genuinely sure that you’ve got everything they tell you to bring, you can probably get as good night’s sleep knowing that it’s going to work out for you. For us, the end result is that we have both been approved for our residency visas and can now reside in Portugal for up to two years if we would like. The future is now as wide open as it has ever been for us… which, naturally, presents its own challenges. But that’s a story for another time.