Demonstrations in Portugal

Please don't cancel any trip because of what might happen. We never know where we will be in six months. If you happen to be an area with demonstrations, just walk the other way. It happened to us about two yeas ago in Barcelona and did not feel threatened at all. My thinking is we should not let ANYONE cancel our life because what might or might not happen.

As with similar posts about Spain and Italy, I would not suggest cancelling a trip just because of protests. Whether there is media attention or not, there are protests about various issues all the time in large cities in Europe. When I was in Spain in May, I ran into two of them. The crowd was small and well-contained, there was plenty of police presence just in case, and it broke up peacefully. No big deal. If I had been in the tourist center at the time, I wouldn't even have seen it.

My God! Compared to Greece, Spain and Ireland, Portugal is an economic powerhouse. But I would never change anything because of possible demonstrations unless it involved labor unrest with transportation strikes. You can always turn the corner if you see a protest.

Seems like some Americans are very fearful of protests( as noted there have been several posts about this sort of thing in various countries lately). I think this is because Americans confuse the Europeons tendency to protest rather then RIOT. As for "economic woes" that certainly wouldn't make me cancel a trip to the States, lol , so why somewhere else. As said, go, if you see a protest just walk other way, these are not the same as riots of violent zealots. Protests are always going on all over Europe, people consider it their right to gather and protest.

We just don't have as much of a protest culture in the states as Europe does. Which is a shame, IMO. Europeans LOVE to demonstrate, and the vast majority of the time, it's non-violently and there's no problems. Even if things do turn nasty, you're not going to be in danger unless you are in the middle of the protest, and they are easy to avoid.

I wouldn't change my plans. We were in Spain in July and saw three protests while in Madrid. The crowd was not violent at all and we could easily navigate around them. There was a large protest in Puerta Del Sol one night. We just opened the balcony doors and watched from the hotel room for a little while. It was interesting trying to figure out what they were saying.

I agree with the comment about protests vs. riots. In Europe, if it's political or economic it's generally a non-violent protest. If it involves soccer it's a riot. Although the recent publication of the Prophet cartoons in Charlie Hebdo in France, coming on the heels of the US movie, may result in more violence in France.