About Us
Guest Book
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Lillian Spadoni, USA, August 2016
“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”
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USA, August 2016
“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,” -
Linda Street, USA, August 2016
“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” -
Dan Hodges, Canada, August 2016
“Hi Caterina, I’ll reply to you, and you can do what you wish, but might be helpful for ongoing projects.
Thankyou so much for the port wine bottle and the cookies = beyond expectations snd a nice touch.
The book was helpful even though we did not accomplish nearly all.
Loved Portugal and southern Spain,
Trip to San Miguel excellent and enjoyed the guides very much
The hotels were all excellent; really enjoyed the one in Evora by the Roman ruins (old monastery)
Tavira was great, and Lagos exceptional. We took a small boat tripamong the formations that was well worth it!!
maybe could have had a hotel in Seville to avoid a lot of driving
The guide in Saville was superb!!
Hint of a time change into Spain would be helpful as the cars add an hour expected driving..
We did not know the breakdown of how money was spent, but not so bad
The tip recommendations probably high, and they seemed surprised when we did, but we had no idea of how much we paid them.
The final dinner, which we had missed on our first day was extremely good and highly recommended although we again had no idea of what we paid, so tipping was more difficult
Please recommend that dinner to everyone, but I would recommend it be on the second night so as to avoid jet lag. if possible
Wine tasting good, and recommend the town near by Mon…old town with bull fighting fort; well worth it
The little waterfall near Tavira had dried up, but no worry.
Overall. a wonderful time in Portugal with great wine and food and people
Thankyou
Dan.” -
Nerolie & David Gleeson, Australia, July 2016
“Hi Nuno
Tonight is our last night in Portugal and we are sad to leave. We have had a tremendous time meeting people, trying new foods and driving over those incredible roads. The scenery was breath-taking especially the Douro Valley.
We have sent a message to our agent Elizabeth (Liz) Rooney at East Burwood Travel in Melbourne Victoria saying how well arranged our tour was and information supplied was exceptional. Also praising your involvement. So, let’s hope there is more travel sent your way. She is one of the managers of the very busy travel agency.
We received a text late this afternoon altering the time of departure of our flight tomorrow. It is now 13.05. It hadn’t changed on line when we looked. before.
We will be in touch with the driver tomorrow to let them know..
Thanks again for the wine/port, that finished a great night, the biscuits that were delicious and the soap that smells great in our luggage.
Thanking you also for all you for the way you have helped make our stay so memorable.
Nerolie & David Gleeson” -
Bob and Bev Mackenzie, Canada, July 2016
Hi Joana
We have just arrived home after completing our visit to Portugal with trips to France and Iceland.
We wanted to let you know that our Portugal vacation was a big success. We would like to thank you for your help with the itinerary. The Portugal Trails written documentation was very complete and highly valued. Your tips regarding the car rental, transponder and road tolls were very helpful. The GPS was accurate ( with one or two exceptions which lead to quite an adventure!! — we saw more of rural Portugal than we counted on.)
The hotels and guides were very good. We visited every destination listed in the Road Book and tried many of the suggested pasties and desserts.
It was a treat to be in Lisbon for the Euro Cup. We were able to celebrate the victory in Praça
do Comércio with hundreds of happy revellers. The music played in the square was the loudest I have ever heard!I enjoy photography and took more than 2500 photos. We sent some of the best home by email— and already have prompted several of our friends to consider Portugal for their next travel vacation. We won’t hesitate to recommend Portugal Trails to them.
Cheers!
Bob and Bev Mackenzie