The hands on experience in this remote Portuguese tile factory was an experience everyone should…read morehave. We received a complete tour, saw the process from beginning to end, had all our questions answered and got to paint a tile too. These tiles are made using the same techniques used in the 16th century - by hand. Once you've seen these tiles, all the gift shop tiles are dull by comparison.

This is a tile factory in the heart of wine country on this Southbank of the River, a one hour…read moredrive from Lisbon. The word Alulejos means: Portuguese Tiles, which is an art form dating back centuries. Here at the factory, they make tiles the same way they were made in the 16th centiry- by hand using Portuguese clay, molds, and pigmented glazes. We had the opportunity to watch them make tiles, and then we were given brushes and glaze and told to create our own! The tiles were fired and brought back to our hotel after they were fired. We all had a magnificent time and learned a lot about the Portuguese specialty azulejos!

Great selection of some serious tiles. Not inexpensive but you are paying for craftsmanship. Make…read moresure you check out the tiles with cork backing for use are trivets.

When I was looking at pictures of Portugal, I fell in love with their Azulejos, or tiles. They're…read morewonderful and so detail oriented. Truly beautiful pieces of art. In my research to find out where I could buy some to bring home, Fábrica Sant'Anna popped up in every blog and article I read about. They have two locations in Lisbon, the one with the original factory from the 1700's is a bit bigger than the one downtown. You can buy individual small tiles to medium sized ones to larger ones. You can buy a set that make up a picture to a large artistic piece that is several feet tall and wide. The little tiles make great little gifts for people back home. I ended up choosing several tiles of various sizes in the same color scheme to make up a collage of tiles. They also have everything from hand painted tea sets to door knobs to big and little vases to chairs and a table. The traditional colors are the white and blue tiles but I found myself drawn to the more colorful ones. They are very helpful and you can ask them if they have certain pieces or things that you want on your tile. They can also do custom orders as well and they do ship internationally. The lady that worked at the original warehouse told us that you can take a picture of what you want and that she would capture that on the tile. Outside of the original warehouse where they originally made the tiles, you can peruse the different Azulejos that they've made. All of the tiles are baked at an extremely high temperature too so you can use them outside or even as a hot pad. I highly recommend coming here, even if it's just to satisfy your artistic soul.

Kind of funny, really - we were in Lisbon getting ready to go on a cruise. My wife uses a walker…read moreand one of the parts got lost somewhere. I needed a bolt, two washers, and a wingnut. So...first problem: what the heck do they call hardware stores in Portugal? Figured that out, found this one, Uber to the door. Once inside, nobody spoke English (thank goodness for Google Translate!), and they keep all the loose bits in the back room - the staff has to go get whatever you want. So I kept this poor fellow busy for about 15 minutes figuring out what I needed and what sizes. He got it together, spent a couple minutes on his computer, came back to me: 41 cents. We both laughed, I went on my way and completed the repair. Nice guys, good work, very helpful and patient with tourists!