Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Leaving Portugal’s inspiring landscapes

and homey comforts

for busy booming Switzerland

was *kinda* hard. I mean, who wants to leave a country where homemade soups and buttered toast fingers figure prominently on restaurant menus, and run-of-the-mill fields are home to exuberant displays of wild flowers and squadrons of pollen-drunk honey-bees…

Not to mention the peaceful river beaches large and small that are scattered all across the country and along Portugal’s sparsely populated west coast

and a capital city as elegantly laid-back as Lisbon. (Even M of the Wide Open Spaces didn’t want to leave!)

I really only managed to lure him away with the promise of Port in Oporto….

On our first day in the country we overheard a young Englishman lecturing his dad on Portugal’s misguided touristic development: “There’s nothing here for the tourist, Dad” he whined. “This is what you do here, you hang out under trees and drink coffee and beer.” He forgot to add: And have a fantastic time! We loved the unhurried pace and how strangers would take the time to share their life stories- their around the world adventures- across a cup of soup in a steamy Mom and Pop restaurant, or even on a random street corner. Stories that reminded us that Portugal was once a big-shot colonial power, and still is an emigrant country

Other in-country favourites: Sampling (and re-sampling) fresh out of the oven Pasteis de Belem

casing unusual, century-old treasures

cool urban art

and mysterious hidden nooks and crannies

Then there’s the field research on Port Wine

and the obligatory self-experimentation with its many varieties

The rare and lovely Brunfelsia latifolia, aka Yesterday (purple) Today (lavender) and Tomorrow (white),

sighted at the grandiose Quinta Aveleda, symbolises our Portuguese experience perfectly: A low-key, highly enjoyable blend of old and new, in a marvelous and mercifully undersold country.