“Marta, thank you for planning such a wonderful trip for us.  Thank Ana, as well, she is such a dear young lady that is just so sweet.
We enjoyed all of the hotels you set up.  The Britania is fabulous for Lisbon, Vinci Porto is great for Porto, and Evora hotel was good for our needs.
Some feedback that you can use for Evora Olive hotel is that our room was small, but comfortable and having the garage was just perfect.  Breakfast was really good too.  A great deal for the $.  Everyone was very kind everywhere we went.  Portugal people rock!
Thank you again so much.
We also visited Merida in Spain and Badijoz,  I highly recommend Merida to anyone interested in ruins for roman culture from long ago.  It is a bit of a hike in the car, but great for our needs.  The roads in Portugal were so well maintained, we were impressed.   The rental car people LOVE you, and said that specifically.
Thanks again, Best, Linda
Anyone desiring to travel to Portugal that I know of  in our circle of friends  will be referred specifically to you.
Linda Robeson”

“Hi Cristina,

First, we had a wonderful time.  You have a beautiful country and lovely people.  Portugal Trails provides A plus service.  I would highly recommend it to others.  What other countries do you work in?  Everything was seamless and went much better than I think we could have imagined.
Here are some comments from me; Laura may add others.
GPS – we aren’t big users and I am kind of anti in general.  But your GPS system worked extremely well and we became addicted.  A printout of all the places programmed into each day would have helped us in planning.  We didn’t have a very good sense of distances and how long it was going to take to get to places, so could have used some additional help there.  Also, we were going to take the coast down to Sagres but when we put in the pousada as the destination it took us on a different route, which was fine and beautiful, but not what we planned to do.  The GPS and the road map book did not always match which made for a little confusion.
Hotels – we LOVED the Hotel Britannia.  Comfortable nice, great breakfasts (actually all the breakfasts were much more than we had expected).  They were so nice to us there and helpful and lots of nice little touches.
We also liked the Pousada in Sagres.  We had a nice view from our porch over the ocean.  This was a much better choice for us than Lagos.  We are not beach people but like the vistas and taking pictures.
The other hotels were fine but more modern than we would generally choose.  But good beds and A/C and parking not difficult so there are always trade offs.  We also like to stay in the center of towns so we can walk to dinner, etc.  The Pestana at Porto had terrible lighting in the room but we loved the location.  Victoria Stone rooms were extremely small.  In all the hotels the staff were extremely nice and helpful.  English language programming on TV in all the hotels.
Restaurants – In Porto was had lunch at Majestic Cafe.  Nice lunch and lovely arte nouveau building.  We had some problems in Porto finding restaurants as we needed reservations.
Coimbra – A Portuguesa is closed, out of business.  Warn people because we were rather stranded there and hard to get a cab.  We had dinner at a very nice restaurant another night that was walking distance from our hotel – National.  We were the only foreigners we think in the restaurant, which is always a good sign!
Belmonte – we had lunch at the Convento de Belmonte Gourmet which was an excellent lunch in a beautiful setting.
Sagres – We ate at the pousada, Viagem aos Sabores I think, and Vila Velha.  Both were very nice.
Evora – we had a very nice dinner at a restaurant walking distance from our hotel which they recommended which we liked a lot – Vinho e Nos.
In general, in Porto we needed an extra day.  We liked both walking tours, especially with Margareta in Lisbon.  The fado evening was fine but I think I would do that on my own another time as there appears to be lots of fado in Lisbon and not as expensive.  Your estimates on walking distance were way too short for us.  It took is always twice as long to get places.  Sintra had too many tourists and the fairy tale castle is definitely not walking distance.  But we took the tram to Sintra which was nice.  I really liked Belem and we liked our pastels.  Your expressways are wonderful, easy to drive, and there wasn’t much traffic.  We fell in love with Planalto white wine from the Douro Valley and will now look for it in the States.  Can’t believe how many people speak English and with an American accent!
Thanks again for the cookies and port.  Laura brought the port home and we will toast you and Portugal from our winter homes in Tucson with our friends there this winter.
All the best
Karen and Laura.”

“Good day, Rita,
My daughter and I were fortunate to spend three weeks in Portugal in August, traveling around the beautiful country on one of your wonderful trips. The hotels were beautiful and well-located to attractions.  The walking tour in Lisbon was just so interesting and fun – I learned so much of Portuguese history and tradition. The dinner with Fado entertainment was exceptional.  Our Porto walking tour was very nice – so much history!  And the cooking class with Sophia in Evora was the best!  It was a memorable trip.

Thank you and your staff for all the hard work in developing the trip for us. When we had some car trouble, your staff assisted us immediately.  I believe that is was Nomo that helped us – hopefully I have the name correct.
My request – is it possible to purchase another one of the Portugal Trails guidebooks from your company?  I misplaced the original one and I wanted to purchase another one for Tara. It is such a comprehensive guide, and the photography is wonderful.  Please let me know if it is possible to obtain another guidebook, at your earliest convenience.

Again, my thanks to you, and your competent staff.

Lillian Spadoni”

“Dear Sofia,
We are back home in Oregon adjusting to the 8-hour time change and telling everyone how wonderful our trip to Portugal was.  Cascais was an excellent choice for our last stop in Portugal and not one that we would have selected on our own. It worked especially well for meeting our friend, who flew from Budapest to meet us our last weekend.  We loved all of the cities we visited and felt happy with the amount of time we had allocated to each, but would have savored more time especially in Porto, our favorite location.
Thank you so much for your knowledgeable assistance in planning the trip.  It was definitely very helpful to have the hotels, rental car, GPS, guides, and airport transfers all coordinated through your office. The guides we had in Lisbon and Porto were both excellent.  We particularly enjoyed the young woman in Porto because of her academic studies in architecture, which is one of our areas of interest. The drivers who met us at the the airport and train stations were all top notch.  The car we rented was a Volvo, which Mariette really liked since she drives a Volvo here at home. The rental car return went smoothly.  Even though the taxi rolled into our car in Porto, Avis said everything was covered by our insurance.
Here is a quick impression of each of our hotels:
Inspira Santa Marta – Clean and well run, very good breakfasts, but the location was not very close to places we wanted to visit.
Pestana Vintage Porto – Fabulous location, incredible view from our room, very helpful staff, our favorite hotel.  No parking on site.
Oslo Hotel – Central location makes walking in Coimbra possible. Noisy street traffic.  Free valet parking. Crowded breakfasts.
Posada Castelo de Obidos – Historic castle in a stunning setting. Very difficult to reach driving a car.  Our room the first night was dark and smelled moldy. We switched the next two nights to a much nicer but smaller room with bigger windows.  The staff was very nice.
M’Ar De Ar Aqueduto – Beautiful modern hotel, but popular with bus tours.  Helpful, informed staff.  Rooms with private patios were especially nice.  The swimming pool was small for a hotel this size, so it was frequently overcrowded at popular times.
Pestana Cidadela Cascais –  When we first checked in we were “upgraded” to a room that smelled very, very heavily of smoke and room deodorizer.  Despite multiple requests for a different room, the front desk staff was not helpful or willing to find another room.  They even tried to say that all the rooms smelled like that.  After two hours it was housekeeping that actually recognized that the room smelled horrible and who identified another vacant room. After telling you of our ordeal we received a mystery gift of sweets in our room, but not an apology from hotel management.  Not the level of service I would expect from a five-star hotel.
Our greatest difficulty during the trip was with the GPS directions.  On multiple occasions the device sent us down impossibly narrow roads or dirt roads through fields when there were better ways to reach the specified destination.  Once it sent us to the wrong town altogether.  We ended up using Google maps as a back up, and then not knowing what to do when the GPS would give one set of directions and Google maps a different set.  I don’t know how to rectify the situation, but it is quite vexing for a driver who does not speak Portuguese to get stuck with bad or incomplete directions in the middle of the countryside.
There were a couple of other times where we wished we had received more information.  Several of the sites that you had identified for us to visit or suggested as possible stops required advance reservations, which was not mentioned in the roadbook.  So when we arrived at the location we were not able to visit the winery or the cheese museum because we had not made reservations in advance.  We also would have loved to have seen the Nossa Senhora da Agonia festivities in Viana Do Castelo (not mentioned in the guidebook), but unfortunately we arrived in town on August 21 the day after the festival ended.
Most of all I wanted to thank you for you kindness and your professional attention to detail.  You always followed through promptly on every request I made, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed.
Sending My Very Best Wishes,”

“Hi Sofia,
We arrived home yesterday afternoon and I want to thank you for putting together a remarkable trip.  Portugal has changes so much since our last visit and everything was wonderful.  We did leave out a couple of the places as we were late starters in the morning (unlike us as both Brian and I NEVER sleep in) but I must admit is was wonderful to just relax and do things at our leisure.  Your suggestion for the “degustation lunch” was a real treat and so glad we didn’t miss it.  Altogether the afternoon at the winery was wonderful.
The only hotel we were not excited with was the final one in Lisbon.   They were charming and the location could not have been better but the room was small
and we were pleased we were only there for 2 nights.  If we were in Lisbon longer we would prefer a better hotel.  Our guide Marta was fantastic, besides being a most knowledgeable and smart lady who knows Lisbon and its history like the back of her hand, she was so pleasant to be with and we highly recommend her.
Please pass this on to her agency.
In fact we only have good things to say about every guide we had and in general the people of Portugal.
We will return with our family and hope its soon.
Best,
Linda”