The people are super. They are always ready and eager to help. In the larger towns, most of them speak passable English and a large portion of the rest understand Spanish, or other languages. In the smallest towns, bring a dictionary. We found restauranteurs with English-Portuguese dictionaries at hand in order to try to understand us or explain something to us.

This is a country for fish lovers. There's plenty of seafood as well (surprisingly on the pricy side) , but the fish in Portugal was the freshest and tastiest of any we have eaten anywhere. They know how to prepare the fish, and it's always fresh from the sea. Many of the restaurants feature a grill outside the restaurant right on the sidewalk and of course you can pick your fish from the display case. Only once did I ask if the fish was fresh. The chef poked the fish, which jumped a little, and he said;    "Fresh...???  Look at it! It's still alive!!"  We also found out that we enjoyed the simplest restaurants more than the expensive ones. We ate at a lot of really great small restaurants and I've tried to remember all the names.

Almost without exception, every restaurant, big and small, cheap or expensive, big city or village, charges a "cover". Generally this means bread and butter, sometimes with the addition of olives or some other minor item. This "cover" will appear on the bill and is mandatory. Depending on the restaurant the "cover" will cost somewhere between one and 3 Euros per person.  In many restaurants, the waiter will bring more items like these, perhaps a platter of cheese or salami, or an octopus salad. If you do not refuse these items before you start eating, they will appear on the bill whether you eat them or not. It's perfectly acceptable to reject these items, although some waiters seemed rather disappointed. 

I've read that Portugal has the highest death rate on the highway in western Europe. I can't dispute that. The drivers on the highway are very aggressive, and tailgate as a rule. They also signal for a change of lanes after they've already started.  In contrast to their driving on the highway, in town they are very courteous. They will stop before a crosswalk even if you are only waiting on the sidewalk. In the countryside, there are two distinct types of roads - the "autostrada" - modern toll roads, which are quite expensive, and secondary roads which are clogged with local traffic. Very few roads between these two classes.

Information for tourists is plentiful and convenient. Almost every city has a clearly marked tourist office in the center of town with lots of signs pointing to it. Also, they keep rather liberal hours, and if they take a break in the afternoon, it's only for an hour or two. Just follow the signs for "Tourismo". 

The Lisbon airport is very close to the city center. It's only about a 15-20 minute ride under normal circumstances. We took advantage of a service at the airport called "taxi voucher". We prepaid for the taxi ride to our hotel at a service counter right in the arrivals hall dedicated to this purpose.  The girl who took care of us at the counter took us with our receipt to the taxi driver and that was that. He took us straight to our hotel -  no add-ons, no tip, no argument, no language problems, no muss, no fuss. We paid 17 Euro for us and our suitcases.  We paid more than the standard because we arrived on a national holiday - April 25, independence day. The normal fare is around 12 or 13 Euro. I highly recommend using this service.