Bom dia!

It’s been a long time since I’ve attended a multi-day music festival, and I almost traveled to Puerto Rico in 2020 for one, but we all know what happened in 2020. So, Afro Nation Portugal was the perfect opportunity for me to come out of retirement, and I’d never been to Portugal – travel goal bonus! Though the festival was in Praia de Rocha, we were too close to Lisbon to not check that out, so we extended our trip to spend a couple of days there after the festival ended.

To get to the festival in Praia de Rocha, we traveled into Faro airport, and our Vrbo rental was in Lagoa, which is not far from the festival grounds. The travel, car rental and house rental all went incredibly smoothly. We traveled in, went grocery shopping at Apolonía Supermercado around the corner from our rental, and had dinner at a local restaurant, O Casarão. It is always nice to eat at local restaurants and talk to the people from the area. I learned a lot about how the festival in town was not ideal for the locals and remembered how annoyed I am when Lollapalooza is in town. 

The next day, we headed out to the festival, which started early evening. The weather was not as warm as expected, but it was still lovely and great for a beach festival, keeping in mind that being too hot among all those people would’ve been rough. The festival set up was one stage for mainly amapiano sets and the main stage for the afrobeats acts. We bought VIP tickets, so we were able to go to a secluded area with bathroom stalls and soap. There was actually a private beach area with a restaurant and cabanas, too. It was a great time!

After the festival, we caught the train to Lisbon. In Lisbon, we stayed at the Moxy Lisboa Oriente near the train station and walked the area for dinner at a restaurant called Tacho do Pescador. We were pretty wiped that first night, so we retired after dinner. The next day, we went to see the sights: Castle of São Jorge, walked the Santa Maria Maior area for lunch and dinner, and ended up in Praca do Comercio, where there were some performances and other entertainment. Lisbon was beautiful, had nice weather, and was easily walkable (if you don’t mind some hills and cobblestone).

The next time I visit Lisbon, I’ll have to do a food and wine walking tour, because I could not partake on this trip, and the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, because I love an art museum!

All photos taken in Lisbon with a Nikon D5600.