Playing Tourist on our Home Turf
Fun in the sun...
Hi everyone,
We finally got a nice, long stretch of sun. After months and months of wet, rainy misery, we’re basking in the sol de inverno.
How have we been spending our sunny (but not so warm) days?
Group Tours Galore
Testing Out The EuroVelo
Navigating a Whole New Tax Code
Let’s get to it!
Being Tourists in Our New Home Town
I’m not a big fan of group tours, mostly because they are filled with tourists. In my experience, many tourists leave their manners and common sense at home when they go on vacation. So I do my best to avoid them.
Hilary, on the other hand, enjoys guided tours (preferably intimate ones).
Soon after we landed here, she got a ticket for the hop-on, hop-off tourist bus and rode it around town to learn more about Porto. She finds it’s a great way to get the lay of the land.
Kicking and screaming is the only way anyone will ever get me on one of those bright red double-deckers. I prefer to go for morning runs and get lost in the streets. The down-side? I learn a lot fewer facts.
Fortunately, Hilary is more than willing to share what she learns with me, saving me the abject horror of a tour bus experience. And since I cover a lot of ground on my own, I can take her straight to the best spots I find. It’s a happy synergy.
That said, somehow I ended up on two group tours this last weekend.
On Friday, Hilary brought me on a medieval architecture walking tour. It’s a monthly thing marketed on Facebook to expats, so it seemed safe enough.
Our group of around 20 people spent a windy, icy-cold Friday afternoon wandering around the oldest quarter of Porto.
We learned a smattering of interesting facts about the ancient history of the city (back to the iron age) and found some new alleys that were definitely not on our radar.
The highlight was getting inside the Sé Catedral. It’s simply gorgeous, with many of the walls covered in stunning azulejo tilework. Overall, it was a pretty decent tour and a good group.
On Sunday, we walked from our place over to Vila Nova de Gaia. Just across the river from Porto, it’s home to all of the famous port wine houses. Yes, port wine actually comes from Gaia, not Porto, contrary to what the name would suggest.
We decided to finally stop in and check out one of the many big-name cellar tours.
I’ve been hesitant to try these because corporate wine experiences usually suck. Over the past 20 years in Oregon, I watched many local wineries grow from cool, personal tasting rooms and tours into highly-marketed, corporate, sterile “experiences.”
Our tour of Cálem port house was exactly that. There were about 35 people on the tour. It was crowded, impersonal, corporate, and had zero soul. The port wine, on the other hand, was delicious, and we did learn a couple of things.
To be fair, I take the blame for this one. Hilary had wanted to check out the World of Wine experience. We last visited in September for a really fun beer fest. I balked, and we ended up on the port tour instead.
This is a long-winded way of saying that I should just listen to my wife sometimes…
I guess you can’t win them all.
Riding (a Tiny Bit of) EuroVelo
My friend Dakota, who biked across Europe a few years ago, introduced me to EuroVelo, a series of international ciclovia routes with a long stretch in Portugal.
On Saturday, I hopped on my new steed and followed the route from Porto down the coast to Espinho and back. It was an absolutely stunning, bluebird day. Perfect conditions for a 50K ride down mostly seaside paths, with a few short stretches on a shared roadway.
The coastline south of Porto is new to me, and it’s gorgeous. Plenty of light sand beaches, rolling dunes, brown rocks, and blue water. I can’t wait to experience it in the summer heat.
I’m excited to check out more segments, and since there are plenty of trains up and down the Portugal coast, it’s easy enough for me to go further and ride the rails home if necessary.
International Taxes Are Fun
In adulting news, I’m navigating becoming a tax resident of Portugal. It’s one of our visa requirements and is especially important for me since I’m actively working and earning money.
Portugal has a pretty attractive tax situation for foreigners. It’s called the Non-Habitual Resident scheme, and it’s good for up to 10 years. Story short, certain types of income are capped at a 20% flat rate. If I do things right, this applies to me.
Aside from the NHR, I’m learning my way through Portugal’s double-taxation treaty with the USA, and the IRS’ foreign earned income exclusion, among other fun legal tomes.
The learning curve with all of this is steep, and I’m trying to do as much of it myself as possible. There’s a dearth of info on how to DIY it, but I’ve figured a few things out and already saved hundreds of Euros doing so.
Of course, I’m also employing some tax experts to get me set up as a freelancer and to do my Portuguese and US taxes. At least until I can figure out how to do them myself.
I won’t bore you with more, this is tedious stuff, but it’s a small price for all this fun.
What’s going on in your world?
This week’s music is a masterful album from 2019 that I recently revisited, and I can’t stop listening to it. One of my favorites of the last decade:
It's so beautiful there. It's on my bucket list. Glad you two are living it up.