Just returned from Spain / Portugal

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Prague / Austria / Slovenia

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I just got back from Austria and Prague in April. Great choice. You can add Budapest to the list.

I was going to suggest Italy.
Rome and the Amalfi Coast would be good.

Or Rome, Florence and Venice.

If you pick Prague, look in to the Hotel Augustine. We loved it. It is in a perfect location right around the corner from the Charles Bridge. It was a big Catholic monastery in the 12 th century and is in fact still a working monastery with four monks currently living there.

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Same here. We had to cross paths at some point.
We flew into Madrid, then did Porto for a week (work), then Lisbon/Sintra, Seville, Cadiz/Tarifa, Marbella/Malaga, Setenil/Ronda, and back out from Seville.

Setenil and Ronda were such an awesome day trip, as was Sintra. The beach in Tarifa was such a spectacular view.

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Dang, should have met up. I was the one who's daugthers were eating cheese and pizza at every meal.

We did a day trip to Sintra and Cordoba, both were awesome.

How did you like Lisbon? Planning a trip to Madeira in a few months and still haven't decided on flying into Porto or Lisbon and spending the first couple days. Flights from either to Madeira are almost identical in price and time, so makes no difference for logistics.

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Looking hard at Prague / Austria / Slovenia?

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Prague and Budapest is a great combo trip. Nice, easy train ride between the two.

Any suggestions on kid stuff in Lisbon? Will be stopping there next March for a few days with my kids and I see some fairly obvious things but if you had a good experience with something they were really into I'd like to hear it.

Could be an attraction or dining, whatever.

Yes, Lisbon was great - we stayed 3 nights which was plenty for us with the kids. We did a tuk tuk tour, which was awesome. I can make a recommendation of a tour guide if you are interested...native Portguese guy who was great.

Also, Sintra was a fantastic day trip, Pena Palace is great.

We did not go to Cascais as we had already been at the beach, but I've heard it's fantastic.

Dining - Bonjardim was great. Castro was the best pastal de nata

Sure I'll take that recommendation.

Tuk tuk rides are fun and the kids would probably like it.

Thanks for responding

add this guy on Whatsapp, he was fantastic - Lisbon Tuk Tuk Experience

+351 931 802 016

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I really want to take my girls to Italy, but my wife and I went to Italy in 2012, so I am kinda leaning to a place that's new for me also - but I haven't ruled it out.

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You can go to Italy 20 times and never come close to scratching the surface or revisiting places and regions.

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Also, Sintra was a fantastic day trip, Pena Palace is great.

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The Moorish castle was cool as well, but i would have had a heart attack if my two kids were with me on that. You can walk anywhere you want there, and there were several places where you're walking on these steps that were only big enough for one person, yet there's people going up and down those steps, and the sides are barely even knee high, and if you go over them, you die. There's no way someone hasn't accidently died there goign over the edge.

Did not enjoy the train ride back to Lisbon from Sintra. Started getting really dark on that train with a bunch of wannabe american thugs wearing gangsta rap american shirts and being typically rude to everyone around them. Thought I was in north baton rouge for a little while. One dude was just hanging by the door talking to every woman that walked by, and while i had no idea what he was saying, it was very easy to tell by every womans reaction he was being a jackass. I was in Portugal and Spain for 16 days and that was the only time i was around shitty people like that where i started to not feel safe. The little shite in front of me on the train looked like he was 10 and had a cell phone and was literally videoing the two younger white girls that were sitting next to us but trying to hide that he was videoing, even though it was obvious what he was doing. When we got off the train I walked with my wife and the two white girls until we got out the train station and both of them said gracias several times to me. I could see their uneasiness on the train as we were the only 4 people on that train that looked like we didn't belong with the rest of the trash on it.




We did a food tour, which i highly recommend in Lisbon. It was all walking, but we went to several different parts of the city. Went to the african part and had two stops in there and that was actually the best food on the tour. One of the places basically makes meat pies. Not as thick of a crust since it's not pie crust like a Natchitoches meat pie, but it was spicy like it should be with a thinner shell. Really good. Didnt' realize how diverse Lisbon was when it came to the food culture. What was really great about the food tour is they took us to hole in the wall places that were just off the main areas, so they all felt very local and non touristy, except the french place we went. Felt like a pretentious expensive place with shitty fancy bites of food.