“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,”