Porto
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2007
1
47
104
Trip End
Ongoing
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Porto,
Portugal
Thursday, September 27, 2007
We flew from Munich just in time as it turned from sunny and warm to rainy and cold that day. Surely a soggy week at Oktoberfest.
Our first stop here is Porto. It is in the northern part of the country and has been around for about 1400 years (It was originally called Portucale). It eventually lent its name to the whole country. It was once the flagship in the Portuguese fleet so to speak. It was the heart of the Portuguese maritime powerhouse when dominating the seas was the thing to do. Today though, it is better known for the Port wine that comes from the nearby Douro region. The city itself is remarkable looking. The buildings are centuries old. It is odd to see a place like this considering some of the cities we have been. Many of the other stops have old buildings, but here it seems as though they all are. Something can be said for wartime neutrality... Nobody bombs the crap out of your cities.
We arrived at our budget hotel that is in the perfect location. We had a balcony in a centuries old building overlooking the main square in Porto. We looked out to even more incredible architecture and were able to watch both the city come alive in the morning and light up at night. Breakfast is also included, and all for less than most hostels we have stayed in! Portugal is known for being cheaper to travel through and so far soooo good!
After getting settled, we hit the town to get our bearings and scope it out. The city seems to be less touristy than many of the places we have been.
hey from Porto!
The tourists that are here collect by the river and across the way at the Port wine distilleries. It is also the end of September and we are out of high tourist season so that may also be a factor. The town has more of an everyday city feel with people going about their daily business, which is a nice way to get to know what life is really like here. We walked down one of their pedestrian only streets and stopped into a mall for some traditional Portuguese food. Meg ordered what she thought was a chicken dish, and I ordered pork - so I thought. Meg received veal and I was given octopus. Obviously our Portuguese is even worse than our German! It worked out as we both enjoyed the octopus greatly. That was about all we could handle for day one as big travel days can take a bit out of us.The next morning we headed out to explore more of the city. We went to the waterfront and across the river to the distillery section (there are 23 of them all in a row). We stopped into the "Calem" factory for a tour. They said the next tour was at 11:45. We were confused as our watches said 11:48. What we neglected to realize is that Portugal is an hour behind the rest of mainland Europe. No wonder nobody else was eating dinner the night before or out walking the streets that early in the morning.
After we set ourselves back an hour, we did the tour and sampled some Port. It seems like an interesting process as they incorporate numerous grape varieties in each batch and add brandy (about 20%) part way through. The sampling wasn't so interesting. As the picture tells, port isn't for everyone. Give me a nice chianti any day, port... not so much.
We then headed back out exploring more of the windy and hilly streets of the old city before picking up some dinner at the grocery store to take back to our room with a view. We ate good food, drank a fabulous €2 bottle of vinho tinto, and watched a beautiful city light up.
Off to the ancient university town of Coimbra!
