Dreaming of a Portuguese Christmas

A year ago this week, I was reveling in a Parisian Christmas.

Garlicy, buttered snails. Too many macaroons. Shopping with my wife Yulia for her Christmas presents—she’s addicted to French, boutique fashion houses. An amazing Chateauneuf-du-pape house wine that cost all of €1.50 per glass while noshing on a lemon torte at an al fresco eatery near the Centre Pompidou, where Yulia and I spent a languid morning strolling among one of the world’s best collections of modern art.

Ah, the memories Europe offers.

This Christmas, we’ve decided to stay in Portugal, our new home. But we’re not staying at home…

We’re renting a car and heading north, to Serra de Estrela—one of the few spots where snow blankets a mountainous, forested sliver of Portugal.

I’m quite eager for this trip.

We’ve seen a lot of the country since arriving this past summer.

Obviously, we’ve traipsed through large parts of Lisbon; beautiful city. We’ve been down in the Algarve, hanging out on the beaches. We’ve spent time in Alentejo, the wine country reminiscent of Napa or Sonoma from two or three generations back. And early fall saw us up in the far northwest corner of Portugal, in the little town of Caminha, hemmed in by a river to the north and the ocean to the west. As I wrote in a dispatch for International Living, it feels like someone misplaced a small part of Puget Sound.

The one region we’ve not yet seen is the mountainous and valley-riven north. Everyone I talk to in Portugal raves about that region. All the pictures I’ve seen make me think to myself, “Yep! That’s where I want to live next!”

Anyway…

This kind of travel is truly one of the greatest joys of living in Europe.

Everything is so close. Most of Europe would fit in the space between Maine and Texas, so driving, flying, or taking a train between countries is quite quick and convenient. Prague to Paris last year was about the same as Chicago to New Orleans. And along the way we stopped in some really quaint, mountain villages in western Germany and drove through the World War I and II battlefields of Belgium and northern France.

But even in that compact space, the life, culture, food, and scenery of all these different places are worlds apart—as different as the Smokey Mountains in Asheville, NC, are to the cornfields outside Evansville, Indiana… and that’s only a 400-mile distance.

I’ve never been much of a car person. Driving in the places I’ve lived—Dallas, Seattle, metro New York, Los Angeles, and even Baton Rouge (heinous traffic!!)—really does dissuade one from wanting to own a car.

Once you live in Europe for more than eight minutes, you quickly come to realize that Europe’s trams and subways and trains really are a far more civilized and relaxing way to move about town or across entire countries.

That said, I love driving here (parking is another story—one filled with hate, rage, and contempt).

European roads are generally on par with American roads. European freeways are very often two or three grades better, particularly where the Germans have involved themselves in the process.

The scenery is always picturesque and ever-changing.

Those German mountain villages and the hot-springs in Baden Baden last year were living postcards.

A drive we took one summer through northern Italy, Slovenia, Austria, and into Croatia was stunning. The jagged and looming Italian Alps north of Trieste—I turned to Yulia at one point and said, “I swear there are dragons living here!”

And I am not convinced there is a prettier country to drive around than Scotland. I won’t even attempt a written description. Even pictures only capture about 4% of the real ambiance of that place, which is why I am trying to convince editors at International Living to let me go drive and pen a story for the magazine about the North Coast 500, one of Europe’s most scenic road trips that loops around the coastal edges of northern Scotland.

Of course, that’s neither here nor there when it comes to me and the family spending Christmas in the mountains of northern Portugal.

I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never really thought about mountains and snow in the context of Portugal. And who knows? Maybe it’s sunny and mild all week.

Either way, driving into the mountains has always been my happy place.

The air is always fresher. The trees greener. The sounds of nature more vibrant. No light pollution at night to wash out the sky while you’re relaxing in a hot tub, sangria nearby, staring up at the stars you never see in the city.

That will be my Christmas.

I hope you have an equally peaceful and relaxing Christmas season as well.