Portugal
Quinta da Regaleira (in Sintra). Designed and built in the 1800’s. These palace grounds are unbelievable. Just walk up and buy an entry ticket. Give yourself at least a couple of hours to explore the place! Parking is rough in the area, so come prepared to park and walk. If you enjoy psychedelic mushrooms, I imagine that this would be a crazy place to trip. :) I also heard that they sometimes do live music here!
The Southern Coasts. I stayed a few nights in the Aljezur region, and visited Praia da Arrifana (a cliffy beach). The sunsets were spectacular. And I just happened to witness the coolest, craziest thunderstorm ever (maybe you’ll get lucky, too!). The beaches down there have a sort of “edge of the world” feeling, if you’re into that. I didn’t make it all the way down to Lagos, but I’ve heard great things about that coastline, too.
516 Bridge (in Arouca). The world’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge. Stretches across a river canyon with a beautiful mountainous backdrop. There’s also a wooden stairway/trail (the Paiva Walkways) you can use to hike up to the pedestrian bridge entry. If you want to do that, buy your bridge tickets for the “Areinho” side, and park at the lot in these coordinates: 40°57'9.68"N 8°10'33.05"W. Take the Paiva stairway trail up to the bridge entry point (it took me about 30 minutes, and was moderately strenuous), and then wait for your bridge ticket time. Afterwards, there is more trail you could hike, but I just took the stairs back down to the parking lot. I felt like that was good enough for me! No need to feed a fed horse.
Nazaré. If you appreciate the raw, ferocious power of Mother Nature and/or watching skilled surfers, you’ll love this place. These. waves. are. massive. In certain times of the year, waves can be 100’ tall. And yes, people surf them!!! If this is on your list, I recommend watching a surfing movie about Nazaré first, to get in the spirit. Maybe on your plane ride over? That way, even if the waves are small, you’ll still be able to appreciate the place for what it can be, at times. And if you’re lucky...Zuko Nature will be there, playing his beautiful music and making bird noises for you as you walk the path to/from the lighthouse.
I ran out of time on this trip, but I would have also loved to visit: