One of Steffen’s Christmas presents was a sailboat tour on the Tagus River in Lisbon that I (again) found through airbnb experiences. We had originally planned on doing it Saturday afternoon, but due to coronavirus restrictions we rescheduled for Monday afternoon. That meant one more day of vacation for everyone!

We arrived in Lisbon a little early to have time to look around, heading straight for Starbucks that turned out to be in a mall where the girls excitedly spent some of their Christmas money. We walked around the area a bit but time went fast!

Then it was time to sail! We met up with Tiago and Tiago at the port and were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the boat and the kindness of our hosts. It was a bit overcast/rainy when we started but quickly turned into a gorgeous afternoon. There wasn’t enough wind to put the sails out, so we just cruised along, enjoying the sunshine, calm seas and learning about Lisbon. It really was a wonderful afternoon and we all enjoyed ourselves more than expected! 🙂 Luisa spent a lot of time driving the boat, and Hannah and I sat on the bow almost the whole time. We also felt very safe, both as far as boat safety goes but also “coronavirus safe”. We know that the tourist industry all over the world has been decimated by this pandemic, so we are always happy when we find safe activities where we can support local tour operators. And we have met some lovely people here in Portugal through these type of experiences. Win, win.

Afterwards we went back into the city for some dinner and a bit of shopping. They still had all their holiday lights up, so it looked particularly gorgeous in the evening. Though it did get more crowded than we are currently comfortable with, so we headed back to Nazaré after an hour or so. I’m so glad we were able to get a glimpse of Lisbon–it is definitely somewhere we would love to spend more time in at some point.