Porto

We had a wonderful apartment in Porto, in the old center of the city, overlooking the river from high up on a hill. The apartment was completely redone in 2020 but they retained many of the old tiles and enormous doors, and it's beautiful. We arrived on Tuesday at 6pm, in the midst of a drizzly evening. Steve had caught a cold and was feeling pretty terrible, so he crawled into bed while the rest of us went out to find dinner.

 

 

 

It was overcast, but the view was still pretty stunning. 

We found a restaurant on Rue das Flores, one of the main tourist strips. You can see all of the recent effort that has gone into historic preservation -- many buildings look newly renovated, many others are being rebuilt, many streets and town plazas are under construction. We had pasta and pizza and wine and dessert, and it was remarkably delicious.

Steve woke up feeling better, and the sun was shining, so we headed out on Wednesday for a full day of sightseeing. We started with breakfast -- eggs and salmon toast and yogurt with fruit and croissants.

Look: it's a kid in a candy shop!!

First stop: the historic (and still in use) train station, with beautiful tiling all around, and a decorative ceiling.

 

Lovely old church, with blue tiles. We saw many churches and buildings with old tiles, enough so that Seb was totally over it by dinnertime.

This was just a random building.

The classic Portuguese dessert is a custard tart, pasteis de nata. You could see workers in windowed kitchens all over town, churning them out. We taste-tested, of course, comparing those of a few different bakeries.

Very modern and clean covered market, with fruits and vegetables, meat, cheese, bread, and trinkets.

 

Next stop: the Livraria Lello, billed as the most beautiful bookshop in the world. Certainly beautiful, but you had to prepay for tickets, queue in a line for 20 minutes that stretched two city blocks, and then pack into a small space like sardines. It was insanity. I felt so claustrophobic. But it was actually quite pretty and we bought some special editions of classic books: Alice in Wonderland, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Oliver Twist, Wizard of Oz.

 

 

 

 

Random toy shop, with Seb as a London bobby. And Pooh bear.

Another church with tiles!  And the Torre des Clerigos.  We did not spend much time at either one, just walked past and admired from the outside.

We went home and collapsed for a bit, and then headed out in search of a late lunch and our next adventure: biking along the river to reach the Atlantic.

The house on the left was being gut-renovated, men throwing old boards down from the second floor to the truck on the road.

Our host, Rita, had told us to bike along the path that runs along the river, all the way to the Atlantic beaches. She failed to mention it was cobble-stoned and rough, and for most of the way you had to share the path/tracks with a trolley car that ran in both directions. So you'd be biking along wondering if a trolley would start to approach you from behind and you'd have to scooch to the side. Crazy.

The waves were big, crashing into this lighthouse and spraying us. It was windy and you could imagine just how intense a storm would be at this spot where the Douro River meets the ocean.

We took a break from biking to play mini-golf in a shaded public park. It was 3 euros a person or something, and the course was crazy hard. You weren't allowed to step on the "greens" at all.

I shot a 16 on this hole. Kept hitting it back and forth, up and over the hump, and never getting it into the hole. My family was laughing so hard by the end that they were crying.

You had to whack the ball hard enough on this hole to make it airborne, so it flew into the open net.

After biking, the kids returned home to rest while Steve and I wandered down and then up to see the Porto cathedral.

Nice views from the top. Our apartment is on the hill in the top right, kind of next to the highest crane.

We returned home to collect the kids and head out for dinner. The early evening view from our balcony was spectacular.

At dinner, we made Seb order the local specialty, franceshina. White bread with three types of meat, covered in cheese and sauce. It was kind of horrifying, and unwieldy.

And finally: a sunset walk across the Pont Luis.