Saturday 2nd May
We arrived in Porto mid afternoon after a 30 min delay. Not only were we late taking off from Gatwick but we also had to abort our landing as the plane in front of us apparently had bird strike when they landed so the ground staff had to check the runway for chicken wings but also scare away any other birds. After what seemed like an age to get through customs and metro ride to our apartment (which took some time to find) it was late afternoon. We has dinner booked at Graham's lodge at 7.30 so decided to grab a quick bite to eat and slowly make our way over the other side of the Douro river to Vila Nova de Gaia, or simply Gaia.
We took in some pretty amazing sights, the brightly coloured albeit run down buildings and the HUGE bridge that spanned the river. We think engineers would get excited by this bridge and even us non engineers found it impressive. It had started to spit as we were climbing the windy cobbled streets to the cellar, but it was a generally nice stroll. The restaurant was empty when we got there, and we were told it wouldn't open till 8pm....Fair to say Portuguese people eat late! We had a fantastic meal, duck and oxtail, freshly baked bread and veges. All washed down with a Portugese red. And we couldn't leave without sampling the Portuguese cheese accompanied by a 20 year old Tawny port and a ruby red port. So delish. The only thing more impressive than the food was the fantastic view of the old town, river and bridge. Watching the city get dark and lit up by all the street lights was beautiful.
Full of food and port we wandered home in the dark towards our little apartment. We spotted a huge swarm of eels in the river which Hamish got a bit excited about and insisted getting a closer look - and therefore almost slipped in. The bridge looked amazing all lit up and despite the rain there were quite a few people out to party.
After a 35 min walk we finally got home and crashed after a big day and had a really really good sleep!
Highlight: Dinner at Graham's
Lowlight: Lots of delays today
Interesting fact: The guy that designed the Effiel tower also designed 2 of the 4 bridges that criss cross the Duoro river.
Sunday 3rd May
We cooked up some eggs for breaky before wrapping up against the persistent rain. It was pouring down and windy all day :( The only positive about the weather was that it wasn't freezing.
We thought we might do a free walking tour but after finding the meeting point and not seeing a huge take up we opted for our own walking tour of the city. We went pretty much counter clockwise through the old town taking in São Bento station (cool train station), Ave dos Alidos (cool street with nice old buildings with the municipal buildings at the top), Museu da Historia and Cordoaria Park before making our way down to the river and back along the water front. Our impressions of Porto was that there were a huge number of abandoned or boarded up buildings, it's obvious that the recession hit Portugal pretty hard, there were quite a few beggars and every second building seemed to be run down. But there were some amazing sights too, lots of pretty churches and old buildings, many with the tiles as a feature, and lots of nice parks too.
One of the strangest things we saw was a pop up market where all they sold were caged birds and bird keeping accessories! So odd, the noise was horrible, there were even peacocks for sale. Not nice.
Soaked but in good spirits, we strolled down to the river again and headed to Calem cellar for our first port tour. It was ok, learnt a lot about port making and the different types of port. Port is very much like champagne in that only the grapes grown in the Douro region can be made into port. We had a tasting, we tasted a white port for the first time which Lou really liked and another tawny.
It was lunchtime now and a chance to dry out a bit. We found a little local tavern and had a nice meal, locally caught cod and veges. We wanted to do one more cellar tour so we could compare the different brands of port so we checked out Taylor's but their tour was too late so we went with Sandemans which has the distinctive brand of the guy that looks like Zorro. Their tour was pretty similar to Calem but had a bit more history behind it. Another tasting and I think we preferred Calems offering.
Highlight: The tours were really interesting and we tasted more port than we had ever drunk in our lives!
Lowlight: Squelchy shoes and soaking socks
Interesting fact: One of the most traditional dishes of Porto is the ‘Tripas à Moda do Porto”. In the 15th century, the people of Porto gave a great quantity of meat to the military forces, keeping only tripe (tripas) for themselves. This is the reason why the people of Porto are called ‘Tripeiros’. We didn't sample.
Monday 4th May
We had another amazing sleep in and home made breakfast before heading out exploring for the day. It had been raining since we got up but had stopped by the time we left only for it to start again 10 mins later. First stop today was Se Cathedral. The cathedral was impressive and the plaza in front of the cathedral had impressive views of the river and Gaia (where all the port cellars are). We then walked along to the Dom Luís I (or Luiz I) Bridge. The metal arch bridge allows you to walk along the bottom( like we did on Saturday) or the top (which we decided to do today). The upper deck is 45 metres or so above the river and would usually give great views but today it was blowing a gale and raining so we did well just to make it across without losing our umbrellas!
Safely across the other side we checked out the Serra do Pillar which is basically a circular monastery that sits high above the river and bridge and has some great views. We then decided to go to the Livraria Lello which is a really cool old bookshop. The book store has been described as the “third best bookstore in the world”...sorry not sure where number 1&2 are but we will get there some day! We joined the line(yes you have to line up, its that popular) before making our way in and out of the rain. The store is famous for the impressive interior which is beautiful, with a spiral art nouveau staircase and cool wooden bookcases.
Once fed and warmed up again we spotted what looked like a yellow thing in the sky...the rain had stopped (for a short while) so we decided to head out for another wander. Having covered most of the sights of the old town we wandered aimlessly for 40 mins or so. The wind had picked up and it was looking like it was going to rain again so we decided to make our way back before the heavens opened but not before a final port tasting at Vinologia. Having drunk a lot of Ruby and Tawny Port we decided on trying a rose. It was very nice especially with some Portugese cheese!
Highlight: The view from the top of the bridge was incredible, even in torrential rain.
Lowlight: Blisters from wet socks and shoes
Interesting fact: J K Rowling spent some time in Porto writing Harry Potter. It is said that some of the inspiration for Diagon alley was from the old book store.
Tuesday 5th May
We were on the 10am flight back to Gatwick so we basically got up , had quick showers and headed off to the airport. There was not a cloud in the sky and the forecast for the rest of the week is 24C and sun which is what we were expecting this weekend not rain, rain and more rain. Oh well cest la vie ! We still had a great time and have been pretty lucky with weather in the past.
