One of the big requests I kept getting from you via my reader survey was that you wanted to hear more about my “Portugal Life”. I get it. It probably seems a bit mysterious…
I had never left the US (besides Canada and Mexico) until moving here exactly two years ago. What brought us here was a job transfer (requested by my hubby) and we knew the move to Lisbon was happening a year out. What we didn’t know was what living in Europe would really be like. Well…now we do and I’m going to share it with you!
To be candid, I sort of wanted to avoid this topic. For two reasons – one, I have had a hard time being an expat and two, I “live” here, so most of what you want to know about, is now somewhat just my normal life. But with that being said I can shed a lot of light to the challenges and opportunities of being an expat and the beautiful parts I love about European living. Portugal is a wonderful country with lovely people and I feel honored to give you a sneak peek into my personal experience here.
My first topic is Portugal pottery. Portugal produces a lot of pottery. Today I’ll be sharing about the great dishes and houseware items that they create and in a future post I’ll cover the famous tiles, also known as “azulejos”.
The beauty of this post is that it is the result of a fun field trip with friends. We took a Friday and hopped in the car to go check out two pottery places. It’s a good thing that I brought some (or a lot of) euros with me…
Our first stop was a place called Bordallo Pinheiro, established in 1884. (That’s not a typo.)
They had an outlet area upstairs and the main floor held all of their regular merchandise.
The pottery options were beautiful. I just had to buy a platter, a chip and dip tray, a cake stand and a great bowl. I wanted to take some photos and politely asked the cashier if I could, at which point she referred to an 8×10 sign directly behind her that stated “no photos”.
Good thing I asked.
I shared my new cake stand on instagram because a new cake stand meant we just needed to bake a cake.
That carrot cake was sooooo good. I had Ainsley make it, because everyone needs to know how to make a carrot cake.
Our second stop was to a factory and when I say factory it was more of a warehouse, as we didn’t see any production going on. But we did experience the lack of heat, the leaking ceilings and the dusty floors. This was not an experience for the snobby shopper. I’ll show you why…
This was the entrance. I’m not kidding. I told my friends as we walked down the stairs that it had been nice knowing them. (*Photo credit goes to my friend Beth, as I was clutching my valuables closely at this point.) We went past the garbage can (?) down the stairs into the dark entrance to discover this…
Can we say holy pottery??? It was a bit overwhelming. I mean I needed so many different items and how was I to decide? Plus there were no prices, we would just have to ask and the sweet lady helping us would say something like, “oh 5 euros…”
The building was enormous and had a second floor too! Needless to say we spent a lot of time there and had our arms full as we left. You know I needed some more casserole dishes, cheese dishes and the cutest ever appetizer tray with a chalkboard surface!
Pottery in Portugal, is produced for companies such as TAG, Jamie Oliver, Sur La Table and Crate and Barrel, just to name a few. In fact we noticed our dishes (Dansk), from our wedding were made here in Portugal. How crazy is that?
So there you have it, take a peak at your pottery is some of it made in Portugal?
TELL ME: What do YOU want to know about Portugal or about living abroad???
My next topic will be all about grocery shopping because y’all know I spend a lot of time feeding my family of five! And speaking of grocery shopping, if you haven’t yet entered my spice jar giveaway you need to do so now, winner will be selected on Tuesday.
Hoping you have a fabulous weekend!!!
