Madeira, Portugal

There are two elements of every New Years Eve party that go hand-in-hand - alcoholic beverage(s) and pyrotechnics.
Auld Lang Syne may come in a close third place but the thunderous roar of the fireworks drowned out any hope we had of hearing those words being sung.
On the last day of 2013 we were blessed with access to an open bar (courtesy of Pestana Casino Park's Gala Dinner) and one of the most spectacular firework displays in the world - 48,776 firework points exploding over the Portuguese island of Madeira.

Sintra, Portugal

The train ticket from Lisbon to Sintra costs 8 euros per person, and it is a great day trip destination for tourists to see the famous Romantic style architecture. The train journey takes about 20 minutes and as we were staying overnight at the village, we didn't leave Lisbon until midday. However if you were visiting just for a day, we would recommend starting your journey early to avoid running out of time. Our first activity was to locate our hotel; and then find our way to the tourist centre - which doubles as the bus stop for all the tourist sites.

Lisbon, Portugal

The train to Lisbon departed from Porto's Campanha station and we purchased our tickets in advance through the online system. The train journey did not have any great scenery so we passed time by playing Scrabble. We arrived in Lisbon via the Santa Apolonia station and our plans to purchase a Lisbon tourist card (that included a 3 day transport pass and map) were not helped by the tourist centre being closed on a Sunday. So we had no choice but to use trusty Google maps to navigate our way to the hotel.

Porto, Portugal

Thank you to the Queen for the Jubilee celebrations that gave us a 4 day weekend where we escaped rainy UK for sunny Portugal (covering four cities in four days), but for those of us who worked the remaining three days - it was an extra quiet working week. 
It would have been nice to stay in London to watch the celebrations; however, judging from the media reaction to the broadcast, the weather put a dampener on the entire occasion. But that said, we had an amazing time swapping dreary London weather for stop 1: Porto.