First congratulations on your marriage and on your choice of honeymoon destination.
My wife and I spent our honeymoon in June in Portugal. Also for two weeks and it was also my wife's first time to Europe. It absolutely did not disappoint although I believe it may have spoiled her, as I've traveled often in Europe and Portugal is truly special.
Pinhao
Ditto the Vintage house as a must visit. It’s beautiful and the service is awesome. we weren't staying there and the "concierge" still went out of his way arranging a boat trip for us even walking us down to the dock on to a boat (pipadouro was the company) and introducing us to the captain so we could make custom arrangements. Another thing we really enjoyed was arranging a port and food tasting at the Vintage House you can email Anabela Barata at
wineacademy.vintagehouse@cshotelsandresorts.com and set up any kind of tasting you like. I'm an amateur ham and salami curer and this tasting was one of the highlights of the trip. We stayed in Folgosa so I don't know too much about the vineyards on the north side of the river. If you have time in Folgosa across the street from where we stayed is Restaurante DOC
http://www.ruipaula.com run by a Porto born celebrity chef. We actually never made it over there but it seemed extremely popular. We opted for eating in our hotel The Hotel Folgosa
http://www.hotelfolgosadouro.pt which I would recommend, although not to go out of the way for, the food was very good certainly Portuguese and well priced. Two quintas we enjoyed in that area were Quinta do Tedo and quinta de santo antonio the later also having a ridiculously delicious cured meats plate we enjoyed with a nice chilled rose outside overlooking the Douro.
Porto again Glenn's spot on with visits to Bufete Fase and Taylor. If you decide to visit Taylor ask the bartender at the Yeatman to make the arrangement. We did and he was able to secure us a tour and mid-level tasting for no charge, just because there is a relationship between the Yeatman and Taylor people. The bartender we befriended was a young man who spent a good amount of time in the states and was as professional and polished as they come. We stayed at the Yeatman and it was one of the most impressive hotels I've stayed at. It was our first stop of our trip and it set the tone for opulence. Don't hesitate to request anything from the staff. I did, and would recommend contacting them before hand. You can try and contact Beatriz who is the wine director to inquire about a wine dinner being scheduled when you are there. We were lucky enough to have her join us at our table for one of the wine dinners and she is knowledgeable and fun. It is hard for me to recommend one port house as honestly we went to a LOT of them. Would again recommend the Sandeman's tour for its professionalism and if you'd like they could arrange a tour of their Douro facility while you were out there as well. Also in the evening the square in front is lively and you can get a beer and a blanket when you get chilly is provided (this blew my wife’s mind). We mainly ate what we could get from markets saving the time and money for wine consumption. The biggest market Mercado Bolhao is nice to visit even just to walk around. Another market that bridges the gap between market and restaurant is Mercearia das Flores
http://www.merceariadasflores.com/ on Rua das Flores. We really enjoyed eating there and definitely would recommend it. For restaurants we were quickly recommended going to Matosinhos by locals we met through a mutual friend. We ate at mariazinha
http://www.restaurantemariazinha.com/ it was upstairs and in a strip mall and it was probably a 20$ cab ride at least. It was awesome they spoke no english and the menu is a guy walking up to you with a plate of fish. You don't order what kind of fish you want you point to the fish you want. It was great and the guy understanding that we were struggling with our Portuguese just brought food. (In some restaurants as soon as you sit down someone will bring over a few little plates of food. These will wind up on your bill so if it’s something we weren’t interested in eating we just politely let them know). At the end after we paid and were waiting for our taxi he brought three glasses of tawny and we sat together in silence watching for our taxi out the window.
I am no help with Lisbon we spent one evening there before flying out the next morning. We went to Alfamo neighborhood to find a Fado place and it was neat although touristy. I'm glad we did it but wouldn't necessarily recommend the place we wandered into.
As you might imagine we were excited just to write this post and hope that you love your experience as much as we did.
