Port
Trip Start
Aug 23, 1996
1
357
451
Trip End
Ongoing
Porto,
Portugal
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Back in July, we went to Evora, and afterwards, I made a promise to you all that we would return. Once back in London, I went on a flight booking spree. Three flights to Ireland, two to Germany, Spain and Portugal, one to Poland and Italy, and a ferry trip to France. So this week, I bring to you, the triumphant return of the Uncle to Oporto, and this time I will stay longer than fifteen minutes !!!
Ribeira
Not often does RyanAir land at a proper international airport, and thankfully for Euro 2004, Portugal rebuilt the airport and laid a metro system down. It was cheap as well. In we went, grabbed our hotel and hit the city. Actually, our hotel was built in an art deco style, in fact pretty much the whole square where our hotel was. So far, so good. The best place to start was the Igreja dos Clerigos. Being Portugal, it was out there !!! The added bonus of this place was that you could climb the Torre dos Clerigos which is attaced to it, to get an overveiw of the city. There were churches everywhere, and we could see all the way down to the river. Backdown, we walked the streets up to the Se. It's a nice old Cathedral, but we couldn't get a proper look as there was a wedding taking place, so we went to see the cloisters instead. On all four walls, were tiles, telling religious stories, which I didn't understand as I'm not religious, but they were nice anyway !!! We followed the road down, and at the bottom was the old Igreja de Sao Francisco. It's no longer a church, but inside all over, everything is covered in goldleaf. It was out there !!! But we were not allowed to take photos, so we took mental pictures instead. In the building next door, was an internal graveyard and an ossary. There wasn't much to see, as there are only a couple of glass tile/windows, to see down. We walked to the river and looked up, and there was the bridge we had come to see. The Ponte de Dom Luis 1. It had been designed by one of Gustof Eiffel's apprentices. Looking at it, you could see why. Trains on top, and cars below, it was begging to be walked, but then the call of Super Bock came instead, so we found a riverside café, and stuck a couple of Portugal's finest down our throats. We haven't drunk any of this since 98, and it was still good. There were still a couple of touristy things left to do, and one of them was to see the Palacio de Bolsa. It use to be the old stock exchange and the only way to see it, is to do a tour, and the next English one was at 18:30, so off we went. Once again, photos are barred. It's not the first nor will it be the last time we will hear this, so we accepted their rules, but we got to where the staircase is before anyone else, so we snapped a few sneakies off !!! Most of the rooms were pretty nice, with hand carved wood from either Brazil or Portugal, and the best was last. It was an old Moorish/Arabic room. The Moors had never been here, but what's a palace without an Arabian themed room !!! We exited, and went back down to the river for dinner. The local speciality is grilled sardines, so we decided to give it a go. The meat was ok, but there were more bones than meat and they were a right bastard to fillet, so I don't think I will be ordering them again. You live and learn !!! There was one last tourist thing to do, and that was to finish the evening off with some port. We found a little bar, and ordered a couple of glasses. Gustavo who ran the place was a great host, so one turned into five, as you do, and by one, we stumbled out, and climbed the hills back to our hotel.
Gaia
A usual, there is only one way to go, and that was down the hill. This time, we crossed the Rio Douro via the Ponte de Dom Luis 1. Looking up, it felt like another Eiffel Tower bridge thing. We had seen a similar one in Bilbao, but it still didn't stop us taking millions of photos. Basically, the otherside is covered in Port cellars. All the factories are here. Crofts, Blackburns, Sandeman, Cockburns and so on. Most offer tours and were not quite sure whether we wanted to do one. We hung out drinking coffee, whilst the locals hit the Bocks. So typically Euro. It was only 11:00, and they were hitting it, I could never do that, well maybe I could if I was doing a van tour, but not for a weekend trip. We walked around with the other tourists and there were many touts offering us trips to do a tour, but we still weren't interested. We found a cafe and had lunch instead. As we are now in training for the Oktoberfest, we had pork, and I washed it down with more of the Super Bock. It was only an hour later than the locals, but it felt more like the right time. Lucy wouldn't join me. She decided that sangria was more her thing as they only charge €3.00 for a jug, and from way back she hasn't been able to say no when it comes to sangria. After we finished, we bit the bullet and stuck our heads inside the Sandeman factory. As its symbol is Zorro, it seemed like a good choice. The price said €6.00 but we were only charged €3.00 !!! Apparently, the factory like most was started by a Britishman, this one being from Scotland and his name was George Sandeman. We were told that all of the grapes come from the Douro valley, crushed, then stuck in a petrol tanker kind of thing, then bottled in Gaia. Our guide said we were in a cave !!! It was pretty interesting seeing all the kegs and vintages, but we were mainly interested in the tasting. They gave us a white and a red port. I don't like white sherry and the same is said for white port, however the red was really nice. Once outside, we looked back over the river and looked up at the town. The whole place just melted down to the river. All it needed was a wall and it would have been a normal Portugese town.
We crossed backover the river and went to the Caso do Infante. Some navigator called Henry was born there. I'd never heard of him, but as the place is free on weekends, we entered. There are meant to be some Roman ruins in there as well, but as all the descriptions are written in Portugese, I didn't really try all that hard in reading it. On the bottom level, some granny had a full on go at me, but I just looked at her and said, no fala ingles !!! We walked back to the bridge, the topside this time and started to walk backover again. Over oneside were some houses that looked abandoned and were being eaten up by ivy, whilst on the other, were the old town walls, a funicular and more old houses. they actually looked a little bit like they belonged in Rio in the shanty town part !!! We kept walking and ended up at a higher point, where we took a little more in. Time was moving on, so we departed and grabbed our bags and went back to the airport.
It had been fun spending time in Oporto, and I am now hoping that those nightmares go away. Bring on November, when we hit the funiculars of Lisbon !!!
