Portugal Travel Tips # 1 Get lost in Lisbon’s old town Welcome to Lisbon, Portugal’s eternal longing! No travel tips Portugal without the capital. Cosmopolitan and dilapidated down to every single brick. So graceful, so full of alleys that meander over hills trying to bring order to this rampant romance of walls and marble. A cloudless dream on the Tagus. The capital of light is a place of reverie and poetry. One would rather be unhappy here than happy, but without this view elsewhere. Fado already sings about it! Inferiority complexes of a proud seafaring state put into melodies and its high gloss, humbled by the earthquake. A sound of lament at the highest level. Lisbon cannot be reduced to its sights, the city is in between. Whoever gets lost in it is on the right path. Portugal Travel Tips # 2  The vast nothingness of the Alentejo In the vastness of the Alentejo, summer lovers can go on into autumn. Across golden fields on which lone green trees grow that can be seen from hotels that lack stars because so far south everyone is needed for the night sky. Everything gets better the further you go inland. More daring, more carefree. An environment that doesn’t ask for anything other than feeding happy cows. A cozy scent of cow shit that can relieve tension and one of the largest reservoirs in Europe, smooth as glass, suitable for days of boating and mooring and what you always wanted to say to each other. Portugal Travel Tips # 3  The giant waves of Nazaré Nazaré is beautiful and dark and heavy. Two hours by car north of Lisbon, it is due to a topographical natural phenomenon that is divided by a headland protruding into the ocean. On the one hand, Nazaré is a popular holiday destination with a fishing tradition. The tourists buy, the fishermen fish. Nothing new. On the other hand, the eighth wonder of the world wakes up in winter. A wave monster, a paradise for superlatives, which creates the biggest waves in the world at the end of the foothills of a huge deep sea trench. As soon as a low pressure area is approaching, the world elite of big wave surfers gathers between October and March and thousands of onlookers make the cliffs on the headland the largest big wave stadium in the world. Waves of up to 30 meters in height were measured here. For good money you can book the Nazaré Surfing Experience with world record holder Garrett McNamara. Portugal Travel Tips # 4  Rendezvous with Coimbra The former capital of the country – it should definitely not be missing from the travel tips Portugal – has everything a southern city needs to be beautiful: It is southern and it is beautiful. There are places with statues and cafes around them and 300 year old trees. The pigeons are aggressive in Milan and the yellow lantern light goes on in the steep streets of the old town after sunset. Coimbra is a proud World Heritage Site, despite the pigeons, it has even been the Capital of Culture. Joanne K. Rowling got her Harry Potter here. So actually she has him and his wizarding school Hogwarts from Porto, but the ones from Porto have them from Coimbra. The university in Coimbra is over 700 years old, one of the oldest and most beautiful in Europe. In Coimbra the people suffer from revolutionary precociousness, here the resistance against the Salazar regime formed as early as the end of the 1950s and from here literary movements set out to finally herald this damn modernity in the rest of the country. Portugal Travel Tips # 5  The most beautiful road in the country The Estrada Marginal is the most beautiful coastal road in the country and leads out of the heart of Lisbon towards the open sea, past the Jeronimos Monastery, very close to the Tejo, until it turns into the enchanted N224 in Cascais. It is one of the main traffic arteries that repeatedly suffers from a heart attack around the evening hours. Once you have left Cascais behind you, the sand turns into rocks that eventually become cliffs, between which a beach is squeezed every now and then, offering unbelievable panoramas that invite you to enjoy the view and to have rear-end collisions. Behind the surfer’s paradise Guincho, the Sintra Mountains rise proudly, which are surrounded by a royal national park and take the coastal road up to Cabo da Roca, mainland Europe’s westernmost point. It goes deep through a tropical, majestic vegetation that leaves romantic villages free and markets and seduces to drive on until its climax is reached: Sintra. On the way you should definitely go swimming at Praia da Ursa (parking at Cabo da Roca, a 15 to 20 minute walk). Portugal Travel Tips # 6  Arrábida, Portugal’s Garden of Eden Portugal is a proud woman who doesn’t let everyone get close to her. Protected by high temperatures and a rigid sensitivity that follows a bizarre collection of old-fashioned rules behind the linen shirt facade. Drunk with friendliness that is not needed for survival and closed like a dusty bottle of hard, homemade schnapps. Conversations lurk around every corner that lead nowhere and make you cheerful, until you think that life consists only of lunch breaks and good red wine. From fat olive oil mothers waving from large, romantically overgrown driveways whose gates lead across carefree avenues to the fulfillment of southern dreams. A life more curve than straight. Through a landscape that you always want to water. A car driving in the distance. Silent. Next to it a bay. A water color overflowing with the sea with boats on it, which suddenly falls off the cliffs as if it had hardly seen the coast coming. Ride a bike and eat cheese, water the roses and catch stunned trout in a clear stream, that’s Arrábida.

The Corona hotspot Spain is preparing to welcome millions of vacationers again. Tourism is vital to economic recovery. The first 6000 guests from Germany are to fly to Mallorca next week for a pilot project. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has extended the state of alarm in the context of the corona crisis again until June 21. At the same time, the Spaniards are preparing for the reopening of the country for mass tourism on July 1st with a lot of optimism but also with a queasy stomach. Will the holidaymakers dare to go to the beaches and tapas bars again after the horror news from the Corona hotspot? This should now be rehearsed in a “pilot project”. Starting next Monday, up to 6,000 holidaymakers from Germany will initially be allowed to come to Mallorca and two other of the popular Balearic Islands. In Germany, the situation in the fight against Covid-19 is as positive as in the Balearic Islands, it was said to justify. New figures make us optimistic. There has been no corona death in the Balearic Islands in the past eight days, on Monday only eight new infections were registered within 24 hours. Initially no individual tourism Germany was chosen because the epidemiological situation there is very good and similar to that in the Balearic Islands, it said. A two-week quarantine, as is currently required for all those entering Spain from abroad , should not exist in the Balearic Islands. According to this information, individual tourism is not initially planned. The pilot project was planned by the Balearic Government together with four local hotel chains, reported the “Mallorca Zeitung”. On the German side, the tour operators Tui, DER Touristik and Schauinsland Reisen are involved. In Mallorca, the German vacationers should be accommodated in the Platja de Palma and in the Bay of Alcúdia. The newspaper reported that there had been protests among locals about the pilot project. Parts of the population living there fear for their health. Euphoria initially only online “For a German, a trip here to Mallorca is like a trip in your own country, you don’t see it as particularly risky,” said the head of the “Palma Beach” association, Juan Miguel Ferrer. His father Antonio was the first to serve draft beer in the legendary “Köpi” on Playa de Palma at the end of the 1970s and is therefore considered the founder of “Bierstraße” and “Ballermann”. His son was quoted these days by the specialist portal “Hosteltur” with the statement that he was already seeing the first “euphoria” arise online. However, a considerable increase in bookings was recorded for September in particular, while uncertainty still prevailed for July and August. But Ferrer’s motto is: “No matter how small the season, we take what we can take with us.” In any case, the preparations are in full swing, not only on Mallorca, where one in five is employed in tourism. All over the country, the holiday complexes are being brought up to scratch, screwing, painting and cleaning is taking place everywhere. After the country, which was particularly hard hit by the pandemic, remained in a state of shock for months, nobody can now afford to worry or hesitate. After all, tourism contributes more than 12 percent to national income, and in no other European country is the proportion higher. “I lost about 30,000 euros due to the two-month compulsory closure,” says Adrián Caricart, owner of the “La Vella Lleteria” wine bar in the coastal town of Premia de Mar near Barcelona. “Even if the holidaymakers come back, that can’t be made up, but at least we can survive then,” he says, representing the hundreds of thousands of Spaniards who live from tourism. Many of them earn the money in the main season with which they have to make ends meet for the rest of the year. But Adrián is also a little uncomfortable when he looks from his bar at the tables of the restaurants and cafés on the small square next to the church: The locals sit happily and loudly among themselves in the early evening, hardly anyone keeps their distance and many have dangling the mask under the chin. At “Malle”, in Madrid and in Lloret it is currently no different than in Premia. “It will be difficult to control,” says Adrián, running the palm of his hand worriedly over the short haircut. Video surveillance on the beach Keyword control: Hardly a day goes by without the government and associations not setting up new rules and regulations. The tourist magnet Barcelona wants to monitor the beaches by video in the future. An app is to warn of overcrowding on the water, many beaches set up boundaries, corridors and control points for access. For the time being, however, there will be no delimitations and no special measures on the total of 369 beaches in Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands. In the sun with a safe distance: first vacationers on the Platja de Palma How can one guarantee the safety of bathers ?, the Balearic Tourism Minister Iago Negueruela was asked by the regional newspaper “ARA Balears”. “The number of tourists who will come will be very small,” said the socialist politician. One is used to much higher numbers. As a matter of fact. Most of the 16.5 million holidaymakers who visited the islands in 2019 will most certainly not return this year – yet. Ferrer sees it similarly: “I can’t imagine any partition walls or visitor limits on the beaches here”. On the Platja de Palma you have at least 6.5 kilometers of sand. “There’s a lot of room for social distancing”. As in many other places, lifeguards and beach policemen will also make sure that the regulations are observed, primarily the safety distance of two meters between towels and parasols. And protective mask wherever this distance cannot be maintained. The central government announced at the weekend that wearing masks will remain mandatory even after the emergency has ended on June 20. 27,000 corona deaths in Spain alone In Spain, however, despite all economic hardship, “safety first” applies. “We will guarantee that the tourists will not take any risks and that they will not pose any risks to us,” Sánchez said recently. There is “no conflict between health and business”. “Spanish tourism will now have two seals of approval: environmental sustainability and sanitary safety,” he said. But many Spaniards no longer believe the government. The high number of more than 27,000 deaths made many people aware of the weaknesses of their own country. And the long and particularly drastic restriction of rights has disturbed the country. “I’m not the same as I was before the crisis,” says Adrián. Somehow he feels like he has been raped. Anyone who is currently trying to defend the Spanish anti-corona policy is in a difficult position.

Since the summer of 2016, tourists on Mallorca and the neighboring islands have been asked to pay: Up to 4 euros “Ecotasa” per person and night are due. But what happens to the income from the tourist tax? We present some projects. The “Ecotasa”, the tourist tax in the Balearic Islands, was highly controversial when it was introduced on July 1, 2016. The tax met with fierce resistance, especially from the hotel operators on the four islands – Mallorca , Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera – allegedly, vacationers would be deterred by the bed tax and their travel plans would shift to other destinations around the Mediterranean. In 2018, the tourist tax for stays in the high season from May to October was even doubled. Specifically, this means per person and night: 1 euro in a simple hostal, 2 euros in a country hotel and up to 4 euros in a five-star hotel. Depending on the quality of the facility, guests of holiday apartments are as little spared as cruise passengers, who have to reckon with 2 euros. However, significantly reduced tax rates apply during the winter months. “In the beginning the hoteliers were against it”, says Vicent Torres, deputy director of the agency for tourism strategy of the Balearic Islands during a visit to Hamburg. But after three years the “impuesto del turismo sostenible” (ITS), the tax for sustainable tourism, as the official name is, has proven itself. “The effects of the tourist tax are consistently positive.” 340 million for six project fields The Balearic government has now raised more than 340 million euros. Vicent Torres does not accept the accusation that the additional income only serves to plug the budget gap. From the outset, the tax was planned with the aim of cushioning the negative effects of tourism and “redistributing part of the economic profits from this activity to society as a whole”. Specifically, this means financing projects in the areas of the environment, sustainable tourism, historical heritage, scientific research, training and employment, and socially acceptable rents. The tax benefits locals and island visitors alike. The range of the 220 projects that have now been launched includes much that is intended to correct the sins of the past. The islands have a lot of catching up to do in the construction of sewage treatment plants, because in many places wastewater still flows untreated into the sea. Therefore, funds from Ecotasa are invested in the construction of wastewater treatment plants, for example in Port d ‘Andratx on Mallorca and Portinatx on Ibiza. Shuttle buses instead of private transport But a lot is also being done in the area of ​​training specialist staff, such as the construction and establishment of a hotel management school on Ibiza with a focus on gastronomy and cuisine for 4.5 million euros alone. With a view to more sustainability, the Balearic Government has also implemented other measures. This includes regulating the number of automobiles on the small island of Formentera. Certain natural areas on Mallorca are closed to individual traffic in the main season. For example, visitors switch to shuttle buses on the way to Cape Formentor. And from 2025 there will even be a diesel ban in the Balearic Islands. On the pages of the photo gallery above we show some examples of how the income from the tourism tax is used in the Balearic Islands.

From spring 2021, all seven Tui ships are to sail again +++ Day tourists are allowed to visit Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania again Foreign Office warns of traveling to all of Spain – including the Canary Islands  The most important travel news about the corona virus in the star ticker. The global spread of the coronavirus  and government measures such as border closings are hugely restricting personal mobility and thus travel. The Federal Foreign Office has also issued a travel warning for tourist trips because of the pandemic. Here you will regularly find the latest news on the subject of the corona crisis and travel. Free corona tests for vacationers from non-risk areas are ending The options for free corona tests for all those returning to Germany will be limited at the end of the holiday season. Travelers who do not come from a risk area with high numbers of infections will no longer be entitled to free tests from this Tuesday. Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) said on Monday: “For the vacation time, it was important to test all travelers for the corona virus. With a view to autumn and winter, we are now concentrating the tests more on the domestic market.” The federal government regularly determines which countries are considered risk areas for German holidaymakers – they are listed on the website of the federally owned Robert Koch Institute (RKI). The federal and state governments agreed on the changes to the tests at the end of August. “For those arriving from risk areas, the test obligation and the requirement of quarantine until negative test results continue to apply for the time being,” said Spahn. Tests for them remain free for the time being. The quarantine rules for returnees from risk areas should be changed after a decision by the federal and state governments – if possible by October 1st. The obligation to quarantine for 14 days should therefore be waived at the earliest with a test from the fifth day after return. From spring 2021, all seven Tui ships are to run again After the slow restart, the cruise operator Tui Cruises wants to offer trips on all ships in its fleet again from spring. “We hope to be on the road again with all seven ships by spring 2021 at the latest, with a little less occupancy and the right health concepts,” said company boss Wybcke Meier of the newspaper “Welt am Sonntag”. After cruises came to a standstill due to the corona pandemic, Tui Cruises had parked almost its entire fleet in the North Sea. Since the end of June this year, the company has been offering trips to the North and Baltic Seas again. This weekend another ship in Greece is supposed to take on guests again. Tui operates the ships “Mein Schiff” with the numbers one to six and the “Mein Schiff Herz”. “As far as the finances are concerned, we have done our homework and will therefore survive this phase with fewer ships and less utilization,” said Meier. Around 60 percent of all employees are still on short-time work. Day tourists can visit Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania again From this weekend on, day tourists can come back to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Because of the corona pandemic, guests from the surrounding federal states have mostly not been welcome since mid-March. Such trips were considered illegal and could be fined up to 2000 euros. It is estimated that companies in the country are losing three to five million euros in turnover per day due to a lack of day-trippers. From the point of view of the state government, the restrictions were an effective tool to slow down the spread of the corona virus. “Thousands of day tourists were already in the country,” said the President of Dehoga Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lars Schwarz. Therefore, the withdrawal of the ban was a long overdue step, which the hospitality industry has long been calling for.  Foreign Office warns against traveling to all of Spain Due to the corona pandemic, the Federal Foreign Office has now also issued a travel warning for the Canary Islands, which are popular with German holidaymakers. The federal government is now warning of “unnecessary, tourist” trips to all parts of Spain. “Spain was and is severely affected by COVID-19,” the Federal Foreign Office explains the decision on the website . In the Canaries, the islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife are particularly affected. So far, the Foreign Office had already warned against traveling to mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands with the popular holiday island of Mallorca. Now this also applies to the Canaries. Returnees must take a free corona test and go into quarantine until the result is negative. As the Foreign Office further announced, the regions of Cantabria, Castile and Léon, La Rioja, Navarra, the Basque Country, the capital region of Madrid and the capital of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, are currently affected by the virus. There are therefore strict exit restrictions throughout the country. Discos and night bars are completely closed, restaurants are open until 1 a.m. at the latest. Hamburg fish market should open in October, but only at noon instead of early in the morning The Hamburg fish market was closed for five months due to the Corona crisis – now the traditional market is set to reopen in October. This is at least a concept that the Altona district has developed together with the health authority. Fish, fruit and vegetables should no longer be sold early in the morning as usual, but instead on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Since mid-March, tourists and Hamburg residents have had to do without the 300-year-old Hamburg fish market due to the corona pandemic. Usually around 120 market stalls are set up there. Many night owls went straight to the fish market after an evening in the Kiez. This possibility should no longer exist because the authority feared that the corona rules among the partygoers would not always be observed. The new protection concept provides for a maximum of 500 visitors and 60 dealers. The site is to be fenced off with separate entrances and exits and one-way streets. At the start, 20 security guards should regulate the entry and ensure that the distance rules are observed. +++ Almost 200 passengers have to be in quarantine after their vacation flight +++ After a flight from a Greek island to Great Britain, all approximately 200 passengers and crew members were sent to a two-week quarantine. 16 guests of the vacation plane have already tested positive, the broadcaster BBC reported. According to British health experts, seven of them were most likely already contagious on board. On the flight from the island of Zakynthos to Cardiff (Wales) on August 25, a number of passengers are said to have ignored the corona protective measures. Many would not have worn masks as prescribed; the crew hardly intervened, it was said. The machine was full of “selfish Cov-idiots”, said a woman on the BBC, alluding to the disease Covid-19. The allegations will be followed up closely, the broadcaster quoted a spokesman for the travel company Tui. Many young British people in Greece have a reputation for being partying and drinking a lot of alcohol. News from Friday, August 28th +++ Record of new infections: Canaries tremble for special corona position +++ A new record of new infections has been registered in the Canary Islands. The regional health authorities reported 338 new cases within 24 hours on Thursday evening. That’s the highest number since the pandemic broke out in March. The Atlantic islands belonging to Spain must now fear losing their special position and, like the whole country – including the Balearic Islands – being put on the list of risk areas by Germany.  The associated travel warning would give the already badly ailing tourism industry, which accounts for around 35 percent of regional income, the “death knell”, as the media warned on Friday. The central criterion for classification as a risk area is in which states or regions there have been more than 50 newly infected people per 100,000 inhabitants in the past seven days. In the Canaries there are already 79.69. This means that the islands off the west coast of Africa are now in a worse position than many Spanish regions, for which the Foreign Office’s travel warning has been in effect since mid-August. In the Balearic Islands with the Germans’ favorite island, Mallorca, this number is 79.52. +++ Cunard shipping company cancels all cruises until the end of March 2021 +++ The British Cunard shipping company has informed the customers of its three cruise ships long-term: The “Queen Elizabeth” will then be idle up to and including March 25, 2021, for the flagship “Queen Mary 2” all voyages are suspended up to and including April 18, 2021, and the “Queen Victoria” will only resume service after May 16, 2021. “In view of the current recommendations of the Foreign Office and the Foreign Ministry of the United Kingdom as well as the great complexity that the global cruise operation brings with it during the Covid-19 pandemic, the traditional shipping company Cunard is extending the operating break beyond November 2020,” it said in a Tuesday published press release. The 180-year-old traditional shipping company, which is now part of the Carnival Corporation, the largest cruise company in the world, is the first large company in the industry to clearly communicate a one-year forced break due to the corona pandemic. +++ Due to missing ticket refunds: Lufthansa and Ryanair lose in court +++ Since many airlines do not reimburse tickets after requests for payment, the Flightright portal filed lawsuits in the spring. The first judgments have now been passed on the proceedings against Lufthansa and Ryanair. There are now more than 20 judgments against Lufthansa, e.g. B. in front of the AG Erding (Az. 15 C 2780/20). The judgments are so-called acknowledgment judgments. This means that the airline did not defend itself on the matter and recognized the claims. Ryanair defended itself in a number of proceedings and argued in court that their declaration of intent to pay at some point in the future was sufficient and therefore no legal action was necessary. The courts (AG Nürnberg Az. 19 C 3826/20) gave this argument a clear rejection, since easing payments or postponing payments are not justified because of the corona pandemic and Ryanair should have made the reimbursement clearly within the one-week period. In more than 900 cases so far, Flightright has filed lawsuits against various airlines. Most of the time, the airlines paid immediately after the lawsuit was filed or after a judgment of recognition or court rulings. At many other airlines, Flightright is now seeing a rethink when it comes to reimbursement payments. These airlines include EasyJet, TUIfly, Singapore Airlines, Condor and Eurowings. Family has to cancel the cruise after violating Corona rules Because she is said to have violated the corona rules of the cruise operator MSC Cruises, an Italian family had to cancel a Mediterranean cruise. Contrary to the express guidelines, the family separated from their group during a day trip to the island of Capri, the shipping company announced on Thursday. She was therefore no longer allowed on board the “MSC Grandiosa”. MSC Cruises was the first major shipping company to resume cruises on the Mediterranean after the corona-related break. The “MSC Grandiosa” started on Sunday with 70 percent of the passenger capacity in the port of Genoa on a seven-day cruise. With the lower capacity utilization and other corona measures, the shipping company wants to reduce the risk of infections on board. Health authorities had repeatedly criticized the cruise industry for reacting too slowly to the spread of the virus. According to the Johns Hopkins University in the United States, 3,047 infections were found on board 48 cruise lines belonging to the International Cruise Association (Clia) during the course of the pandemic. The infections resulted in death in 73 cases. Greece tightens corona restrictions for tourists  After the increased number of corona infections, the Greek government has also ordered restrictions for the holiday region of the Chalkidiki peninsula and the jet set island of Mykonos. Celebrations, parties, religious celebrations and weekly markets are prohibited from this Friday until August 31st. In addition, gatherings of more than nine people are prohibited. All bars and taverns must close at midnight. Measured against its population of a good 10.5 million people, Greece has a low number of infections with the coronavirus. In the past few days, however, the number of infected people had risen suddenly. The reason is that many vacationers – mostly young people – have infected relatives and friends in the metropolitan areas after their return from vacation. Denmark creates the six-day rule for travelers from  When entering Denmark, tourists no longer need to prove that they have booked at least six nights in the country. After hours of negotiations, the government and parliamentary parties agreed on Friday to abolish the controversial six-day rule. Denmark had taken strict measures at the beginning of the corona crisis in March and thus got the spread of the corona virus under control comparatively quickly. For a few weeks now, the number of cases of infection has been increasing again, among other things due to local outbreaks in the second largest city of Aarhus and at a slaughterhouse in Ringsted. The cruise ship “MSC Grandiosa” sets sail for the first time since Corona For the cruise industry in the Mediterranean, hit by the corona pandemic, it’s time to “cast off” again: the “MSC Grandiosa” set sail in northern Italy on Sunday evening. The ship, which belongs to the shipping company “MSC Cruises”, left the port of Genoa shortly after 7.30 pm with 2500 passengers on board. In the next seven days, it should call at several ports in the Mediterranean. The cruise ship, which can normally take up to 6000 passengers, first sets course for the port of Civitavecchia near Rome. Then it should go on to Naples, Palermo (Sicily) and Valletta (Malta). The cruise industry is under particular pressure in the wake of the ongoing Corona crisis. Competitive shipping companies from “MSC Cruises” decided to only offer cruises again in September to be on the safe side. “MSC Cruises” wants to prevent the virus from spreading on the “MSC Grandiosa” with new security standards. Passengers and crew members were tested for the coronavirus in the terminal on the Sunday before boarding and their body temperature is to be checked daily. There will no longer be an open buffet – instead there will be service at the table.