So if you look closely, you’ll notice that the two trip posts I wrote about on here in 2023 actually took place in late 2022, so I haven’t written anything about 2023 yet! And here we are in 2024 already. One thing I didn’t mention in our Spring Break 2022 trip to Portugal is that half way through the trip, we decided to try to move there sooner rather than later. We kept it quiet for a while to make sure it was possible and we had to do a lot of preparation work before it became more of a reality. Well, I’m writing this post from the beautiful city of Lisbon, Portugal, so now you know it has worked out! It was quite a busy year so we traveled less than normal but we did a good job catching up at the end.
Portugal
We traveled back to Portugal in Spring Break of 2023, but this time is was mostly a scouting trip to get a feel for different neighborhoods and do an in-person school visit. We narrowed it down to three areas of the city to focus in, and planned to see a few apartments a day. Showings don’t typically occur on the weekends, so we spent our first weekend down in the Algarve region on the southern coast, in a town called Olhão. It was a fun getaway and we’ll need to spend more time exploring the cities in the Algarve. Back in Lisbon, we hadn’t considered it was Easter week and a lot of people were out of town so we were only able to see three apartments in person throughout the entire week. Our favorite one fell through in the end and we continued doing video tours throughout the summer, finally landing on our current place in the middle of July before moving here in mid-August.
My wife has started to write about our Portuguese adventures on her blog worldtravelingkids.com, so I’ll keep this blog focused on our family travels outside of Lisbon.
Badajoz, Spain
As soon as we got our passports back with residence visas we decided to celebrate by going on a quick weekend trip to Spain! The closest city from Lisbon is Badajoz, a quick 3 hours due east. I thought it was a train ride but it turned out to be a bus. Oops! It wasn’t that bad though since it was a quick direct route. Badajoz is a very cute town with a central district full of restaurants and bars. We had a hotel room with a balcony that included a hot tub. We ate lots of good food, seafood lunch in a beautiful plaza, tapas dinner (of course), and a breakfast of large churros with cups of thick hot chocolate to dip in. They have a gorgeous Moorish town square next to the main attraction: a large castle and its surrounding walls. We thought you could only walk along the front of the walls, but at every corner we realized we could keep going, so we spend a couple hours making the full loop on a very hot day. There’s also a nice river to stroll along with an old bridge to the south side of the city.
Cologne, Germany
Part of our European-life vision was to visit the extremely popular (for a reason) Christmas markets, mostly in and around Germany. For our first year, we settled on a weekend in Cologne (Koln), Germany! I had the best pork chop of my life for our first dinner at Wirtz, then we went to the first market near the hotel. It was along both sides of a river and had a nice ferris wheel that helped us spot other parts of town to visit. The next morning we started early with a great breakfast and three markets on the west side of town. We didn’t realize at first that each market had their own unique mug for sale, so we started a collection. After dropping off the first set of mugs, we went to four other markets in the old part of town. They are similar in some ways and unique in others. The lights, the decorations, the people, the food, the drinks, everything was so much fun! When we got to the final market at Cologne’s famous cathedral it started to rain pretty hard, so we hopped in a tourist train back towards the hotel. With most of the family warming up and staying in for the night, Emily and I headed back out to try one more market we saw the first night. They didn’t have a new mug and the market was quite small, so we didn’t stick around long. We then tried to go back to Wirtz for another pork chop but unfortunately they were closed for a private event. We finished up the night (and the trip) with a nice dinner at a nearby beer hall.
Switzerland and Liechtenstein
This was our longest trip of the year and we took it right after Christmas through New Years Day. We flew to Zurich and then immediately jumped on a train and a semi-frantic transfer to a bus that took us to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. The Prince’s castle half way up a mountain was beautifully lit up and overlooks the city. We ate a delicious (and very expensive) dinner at an asian restaurant in the middle of the main pedestrian street. There was a winter ice rink there too, though we didn’t have time to go for a spin. The next morning we walked down to an old wooden bridge where you can walk to Switzerland. We of course took lots of photos of ourselves straddling the border and jumping back and forth between the countries. We went back to town to see the rest of the sights along that same main road. We got passport stamps at the welcome center and did some shopping. We then went for a lovely (and very cheap) wine tasting at the Prince’s personal vineyards just outside of town.
We then took a bus and train over to Lucerne, Switzerland. It’s an old and enchanting city with ornate bridges that criss-cross the main river. We had fondue for dinner the first night, outside with portable heated seat pads and blankets. The next day we spent mostly at nearby Mount Titlis, a quick train ride away. We quickly realized we didn’t have the right shoes for walking in snow, so we rented snow shoes and walking sticks. They said we couldn’t wear them with regular shoes, so we also rented high-top hiking boots. Well…funnily enough, those hiking boots were perfect and we just carried around the snow shoes but never wore them! The mountain has three levels of gondolas to it, and the last one is massive and rotates! At the very top there’s an amazing blue ice cave that you can walk through and a suspension bridge between two peaks. After doing those attractions we went all the way back down (returning the unused shoe shoes at the last stop…). Back in Lucerne, we walked all around the city and stopped at several chocolate shops. Jaime and Emily ended the night at a nice wine bar. The next morning, we walked along the old city walls, took in views from an old clocktower, and listened to church bells ring around the city. We made a quick stop at an intricately carved lion in a massive boulder, and then headed out of town.
On the way to Zurich, we stopped at a chocolate factory and made our own chocolate bars! In Zurich, we walked around and soaked in a bright sunset over the river. We then walked some more down the main shopping street which was covered in dangling lights the entire length of it. We had dinner in another beer hall to end the night. For the last full day, we took a funicular to a hilltop with city views, then back in town we went to another hill along the river with views from a different angle. We then walked a bit outside of town to the FIFA Museum, which was fun and informative. We had more fondue for dinner and then wandered around hitting up more chocolate shops. Jaime and the girls went in for the night, while Emily and I went to an English pub and a metal bar to ring in the new year! We left shortly after midnight and watched fireworks from the hotel room with Jaime. Welcome to 2024!