From America to Spain, Portugal and Morocco
exploring the authentic Mediterranean culture
Portugal is like an exquisite dish of food.
There is always room to repeat and a hidden flavor to discover.
Portugal is like that book that you fall in love with, that one you stay up half the night reading. It has conquered us with the authenticity and closeness of its people, the breathtaking beauty of its nature, the bravery of the ocean and that feeling of being at home. A perfect balance between elegance and decadence. Cod fish and humble sardines are emblems of the country; the hearty country bread and adorable sweets like custard tarts and pasteis de nata are found on every street corner. Join us to taste the real flavors of Portugal in a 9-night spectacular journey.
CÚRATE and the specialist food and wine tour operator Paladar y Tomar provide the most seamless journey that only two in-the-know insiders can assure.
It’s time to discover this signature 10-day program across Portugal through enjoyable and comprehensive show-cooking and intimate visits, and only-well-connected experiences under the expert purview of Katie Button and Félix Meana and the most illustrious local cooks and professionals.
Join a dream program that contains unimaginable visits all along with the valuable insight only locals can give, leaving you well versed in many foundations and techniques of Portuguese gastronomic culture and the Mediterranean soul.
Welcome to Porto! Portugal’s second city has everything you want in a luxury travel experience, balancing its rich history with vibrant modernity. Walk the cobblestone streets leading to the Porto Cathedral, Palácio da Bolsa and the extraordinary Church of São Francisco before the first serious collation.
Soothing and sublime, rich and relaxed, and best enjoyed at a leisurely pace, aptly describes both Porto’s cuisine and its eponymous wine. Steeped in tradition and made with care, Porto’s cuisine combines the old with the new, marries vintage preparations with modern touches and adjoins tastes of the past with nods to the present.
Dinner
Hotel Infante Sagres 5*
Nobody can leave Porto without crossing “to the other side”, to Vilanova de Gaia, where major port producers have their warehouses. You’ll be standing where barrels of wine and port have been loaded and unloaded for hundreds of years. You’ll get to know about the different types of port (tawny, white, crusted, vintage), and the slow development of the wine inside the porous oak barrels.
As you visit Port cellars from centuries past, traverse the long-trodden paths of winemakers now gone, and taste wines likely bottled before you were born, you feel a rebirth — you will have lived, breathed and drank the living history of the Douro.
SEAFOOD
Follow the smell of barbecue at the harbor district of Matosinhos in northern part of Porto, where restaurants, each with its own outdoor grill on the street, propose superb fresh daily caught fishes.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Hotel Infante Sagres 5*
Let’s leave to the magical Douro Valley, home of Portugal’s most famous wine region.
To experience the Douro Valley is to experience the river Douro, a slice of life that flows through Castile and León in Spain and into Portugal, running through the famous valley, where all facets of life — commerce and community, soul and spirit — merge with the majestic waters, towering canyons, whitewashed quintas and granite bluffs above, before rushing forward into Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto, where she coalesces with the Atlantic.
Be ready for vertiginous rides and a warm welcome to one of the most famed quintas, enjoy wine tastings and a charming, bowered vineyard lunch. There’s 2,000 years of winemaking history in the Douro! After lunch we’ll drive to Aveiro, the Portuguese Venice.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Montebelo Vista Alegre Hotel & Spa, 5*
Wandering around the town of Aveiro gives us a nostalgic feeling that we are in Venice, but in smaller dimension. Channels, bridges, colorful houses and an intense university life set the pace. The Aveiro estuary occupies an enormous 47-kilometer marshy area, where the eel and salt flats proliferate. Traditionally the moliceiros, flat-bottomed boats and bow curved, painted with scenes of the fishermen’s life who used to collect seaweed from the bottom of the channel to use as fertilizer in the fields. And don’t forget to try the ovos moles, sweet egg yolks with sugar and water created by the nuns of the Convent of Jesus. They are shaped imitating marine elements, such as fishes or shells, and wrapped in wafers.
VISTA ALEGRE
Motebelo Vista Alegre Hotel where we stay was built to boost the historical heritage of Vista Alegre. Fábrica da Vista Alegre which began its business activity in 1824, in buildings close to the Chapel Nossa Senhora da Penha de França (1699),
has since then undergone successive renovation and expansion works. The entrance bears the
name Vista Alegre – Fábrica de Porcelana in azulejos, as well as the establishment year and the
100th anniversary date. Enjoy your free afternoon and evening to explore the museum, the chapel, the palace and the shops of Vista Alegre.
Breakfast, lunch
Montebelo Vista Alegre Hotel & Spa, 5*
Next will be Óbidos. Located on the western central coast of Portugal, Óbidos is an ancient fortified city, a perfect medieval silhouette with a fortified castle where the Literary Man hotel is home to about 50,000 books. Óbidos is one of the most spectacular towns from the North of Portugal and became the nineteenth UNESCO City of Literature in December 2015. Enjoy a free morning in this charming town before we meet for a local genuine lunch.
ÉVORA
After lunch we’ll reach Évora, that shows a stunning combination of Roman, Gothic and Baroque architecture for which it has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. You’ll find a Roman temple from the first century, a medieval convent and superb sixteenth-century facades lining up side by side in its narrow, cobbled streets.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Hotel Convento do Espinheiro, 5*
Let’s explore Évora in a magic walking tour. “Queen of the High Alentejo” and one of Portugal’s best preserved medieval cities, Évora is ideal for immersing yourself in the past. Sheltered by its 14th century walls, its narrow streets lead to amazing architectural works: medieval cathedrals and cloisters, Roman ruins like those of its temple, a picturesque square and a surprising church covered with human bones and a Neolithic site. Évora is also a lively university city.
WINES FROM ALENTEJO
The fascinating Alentejo unfolds a land finely aged. You’ll travel among medieval whitewashed villages, rolling hills, mountain forts, olive groves and a constellation of vineyards in the land of largest producer of cork in the world. The local food is neither peasant nor sophisticated, it is rustic and rich; Alentejo is known as Portugal’s gastronomic soul. And the Herdades (wineries) are part of its culture and identity and are definitely a must visit on an Alentejo journey. Estremoz will cross our path towards an unforgettable evening.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Hotel Convento do Espinheiro, 5*
Évora, the capital of this sun-baked land also reveals the best of the cozinha alentejana.
Besides the good wines, the cuisine is rich and varied, with Roman and Arab influences. The bread serves as a base for all regional gastronomy. Recipes that dominate are based on pork and lamb meats, river fish and the sea. The famous açorda – a delicious but humble soup -, for example, dates back to the presence of the Muslims, who dominated the territory for about 500 years. The tradition of the Conventual confectionery in Alentejo has its origin in the convents and monasteries of the region. A true gastronomic journey to discover typical Alentejo food can last for weeks, if not months. The regional dishes are many, passed down from generation to generation, perfected, celebrated.
So, we propose a hands on cooking class with a local chef to learn how to make some of the most popular recipes.
Free evening to explore Évora on your own.
Breakfast, lunch
Hotel Convento do Espinheiro, 5*
Her ports have seen Vasco de Gama embark to reach India, Fernão Gomes launch to explore the African coast and Columbus dock en route to Barcelona with word of his discovery of the Americas. You can’t describe Lisbon’s present without mentioning her past. Home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites — Jerónimos Monastery, Sintra and Belém Tower the city is seductive.
What about Lisbon’s cuisine? The Atlantic plays perhaps the most dominant role in Lisboan cuisine — the region boasts over 365 original recipes for cod alone — and you’d be hard pressed to bypass the aroma of grilled sardines in the small, antiquated quarters of Bairro Alto and Alfama during the Popular Saint’s Festival in June. But Lisbon’s culinary profile is anything but staid. Whether you choose haute cuisine or café fare, Lisbon’s penchant for perpetual reinvention ensures you the utmost in gastronomic acquaintance and inspiration.
Breakfast, lunch
Hotel Tivoli Liberdade 5*
From Lisbon, drive northwards towards the mountains and reach Serra de Sintra. For romantics the world over, the former royal residence of the Kings of Portugal, Sintra – UNESCO Heritage Site – conjures up fantasies of fairy-tale castles and noble mansions, mystic forests and exotic gardens laced with waterfalls and mossy walls, lofty peaks lost in mist that suddenly dissolves to reveal views of grand estates, vineyards, wildflowers and the ocean.
THE END OF THE WORLD
Then let’s head west out of Sintra a few miles down to Cabo de Roca, this wild and rocky cape being Europe’s westernmost point. And a few miles away, at Guincho beach, where well-toned surfers and windsurfers challenge the waves, the numerous seafood restaurants -where the produce is everything – are ready to welcome eager visitors.
FAREWELL DINNER
Our farewell dinner… a Lisbon’s gourmet feast we cannot reveal.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Hotel Tivoli Liberdade 5*
Following breakfast, private transfer to Lisbon airport at your appointed time or continue your journey if you decided to extend your trip.
Breakfast
DATES:
INCLUDED:
NOT INCLUDED:
EXTENSIONS:
If you are interested in a pre or post extension trip:
PRICE:
Total journey: €6,825
*Rates are per person, on double occupancy, in Euros
BOOKING DEPOSIT:
– At the time of reservation: 25% of journey cost per person
– 90 days before departure: Balance due
TERMS AND CONDITIONS:
– Payment method: Bank transfer or major credit cards are accepted (Visa, American Express, Mastercard)
At CÚRATE Trips the excellence of the landscape’s cuisine along with its breathtaking natural surroundings, exceptional wine varieties, and tranquility of the hand-picked singular accommodations create a getaway unparalleled in value and authenticity.
CÚRATE Trips benefit from the expertise of Paladar y Tomar curating every hotel in search of the most unique nature of each location. This allows us to cater for every different type of personality and taste and have selected for this occasion singular hotels with immense value that enhance every moment. Our stories start from the moment you arrive.
There’s much to explore before you taste your first port wine in the city that bears its name. Although Porto‘s landscape is mostly dominated by 18th and 19th century buildings, the capital of Douro offers an impressive and still unexplored showcase of contemporary and avant-garde architecture. Porto and tonic is the latest unexpectedly bracing yet refreshing spring cocktail all the world around, while locals have been drinking it for decades; that proofs Porto is in motion. When you embark on a curated tour of the Douro Valley‘s wine region, the legacy portion of your Porto luxury experience begins.
Aveiro, the Portuguese Venice, is one of the few cities included in the Réseau Art Nouveau Network, a reputable network of European cities in which this architectural style is most evident. But of course, it is the Ria de Aveiro (Aveiro lagoon) that marks the city identity and economy, and gave birth in 1973 to the Aveiro University, offering 58 different academin degrees very focused on research and technology.
When in Évora, the capital of Alentejo, a rustic fare, prepared in a way that allows the ingredients to shine unencumbered, dominates the region. Slow-cooked black Ibérico pork shoulder, bacalhau com espinafres (salt cod with spinach), sopa de beldroegas (purslane soup with chorizo) and ensopado de Borrego (lamb stew with Tellicherry peppercorns) are a few dishes you can classify as must-try.
And Lisbon has it all to seduce the traveler. An unprecedented culinary effervescence has invaded the city of the seven hills. In harmony with the renovated taverns full of charm where you can sample traditional “petiscos” we find new restaurants hosted by a generation of chefs determined to reinvent Portuguese cuisine based on boundless imagination and a unique blend of flavors.
Olive oil, bread and wine are in the core of the Portuguese culture; being a country facing the Atlantic and breathing the ocean, the paradox is that its cuisine is Mediterranean.
CÚRATE Trips bring out the most authentic side of Portugal in this spectacular 10-day unique and therapeutic escape.
© 2018 Paladar y Tomar
