Porto - Day 1

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Ah ha, I solved the problem of the flooding shower and it’s nothing to do with the shower curtain! The fixed shower screen is inserted on top of the shower base rather than inset into the shower base. This results in the water flowing down the glass onto the shower base and then along the ledge and straight out the front of the shower onto the bathmat. Before Bernie showered, I rolled up a face washer and put it on the ledge. Bernie managed to shower without flooding the bathroom floor. Shame to work out the solution just when we were having our last shower here.

We hit the breakfast room right on 8.30am for a quick breakfast. I can forgive the B&B their dodgy shower screen because they offer fresh orange juice for breakfast. You have to love orange juice that actually tastes like oranges. After we’d eaten, we just had time to clean our teeth and pack our toilet bags before our taxi arrived early. Booked for 9.15am it arrived at 9.05am. It’s only a short drive to the station, a relatively short walk even, but not easy to manage with suitcases. Unlike in Melbourne the driver didn’t seem bothered about a short fare. He had just been to the airport, so I suppose he was off to a good start for the day.

To make sure that we had the correct tickets today we purchased them from the ticket counter. The attendant there loaded the value on the errant cards that we used the other day. Bernie asked how many zones to Lisbon and was told it’s five. Although we had 24-hours of travel loaded on our cards on Thursday we suspect that we didn’t have it loaded for multiple zones?? Anyhow, we don’t feel that we travelled to Sintra for free, just not on the right tickets. Whatever, we got away with it!!

The train for Lisboa-Oriente arrived and we maneuvered ourselves on board. With it being the first station, we had our choice of seats, so we hogged two groups of four seats. We did leave one seat that someone else could sit in and before long both those seats had been occupied. A little closer to the city a woman got on and was all snarky at me about the suitcase and I think was indicating that the suitcases should have been left near the door?? Anyway, I don’t really know what her problem was as there was another seat available for her other than the one that my suitcase was blocking. However, feeling guilty, I squished myself up with my suitcase to make another seat available … which no-one sat in for the rest of the journey!!

We arrived at Oriente well ahead of our service to Porto. We probably could have had a leisurely breakfast and caught the next train, but both of us would rather be at Oriente waiting for the train than on the train between Sintra and Oriente worrying about whether we would arrive in time to make the 11.39am train! You just never know when trains might run late or break down …

OMG, the chaos of catching an inter-city train in Europe. Our tickets were for Carriage 11, seats 33 and 35. Where will Carriage 11 pull up? What part of the platform should we be on?? How long will the train be at the station before it pulls out?? We opted to wait mid-platform figuring if the carriage didn’t pass us as the train pulled in then we would need to head to the back of the train. Sure enough, the train pulled in and we had to make a mad dash towards the train’s end. We reached the first-class carriages, but the first door was all clogged up with a group asking the conductor 20 questions.

We headed to the next door and boarded. It’s good to be ON the train, you can sort out the carriage and the seat after the train is moving, but if you miss the train well, then you’re in trouble. At least everyone else seemed just as confused as us. There were people and suitcases milling around back and forth between the two first class carriages trying to find the correct seats AND the luggage racks were already full of luggage loaded at the originating station.

We finally managed to make our way into Carriage 11 and claimed our seats just as a woman was about to sit in one of them because there was no-one in them. Bernie had to heave our cases into the overhead luggage racks which was a herculean effort. Twenty kilo dead lift anyway! While he was stowing our bags the American couple seated opposite started commenting on the size of the luggage that some people travel with. Oh, it’s like on the airlines - people travel with the maximum amount they think they can get away with. I just said, it all sort of depends how long you’re travelling for … just so she knew we are English speakers before she said anything worse about us or our luggage!! We may have had more luggage than some, but we definitely had less luggage than others.

We arrived in Porto just a little behind schedule and could not believe it when Bernie helped the American fellow lift their luggage down from the overhead rack. They had as much luggage as we did!! Bernie tried to buy a local train ticket at the first ticket matching we came to. Finally got it to ‘talk’ English which was nowhere near as easy as it was with Lisbon’s machines. When it came time to pay it wouldn’t accept payment with Bernie’s phone and by the time he dug his card out the transaction had timed out. Argh!

We headed upstairs to see if the phone signal was better. Um, no, we’re basically off the air much to Bernie’s intense frustration. He purchased e-sims and so far, they have been far from reliable. Right now, we need some signal to ask Google Maps about what train(s) to take to our B&B, but we’ve got no internet on either of our phones. Oh well, let’s just grab a cab.

By this stage we were on the end of the queue for cabs, so we had a bit of a wait before it was our turn. We had told reception at the apartments we would be there by four and it was getting very close to 4.00pm. Finally, we were in a cab, it was hard to decide if the cabbie or his Mercedes was older?? And … we made it by 4.00pm and reception hadn’t closed. Phew!

We stowed our gear in the apartment and then headed out to the Tourist Information Office to collect our Porto Cards. With our cards in our wallets, we continued down to the Douro River. Down, down, down. Is Lisbon Hilly? Yes. Is Porto hillier? Yes, it is!! When we reached the river, we found the booth selling tickets for the Six Bridges Cruise. Luckily, we only had to wait about 10 minutes for the next cruise at 6.00pm. We headed upriver first and within a few minutes we had seen five bridges and I was feeling a bit underwhelmed by the cruise. We turned around and headed back to our starting point and then cruised out to the Ponte da Arrábida so, in the end, a 50-minute cruise.

On a Saturday afternoon heading into evening, it was busy along the riverbank. There were market stalls and buskers including one fellow dressed only in a macrame skirt! I can’t even record what instrument he was playing as I was too bemused by how much bottom could be seen through his costume.

We climbed back up the hill, returning to the apartment via the Pingo Doce grocery store where we picked up some supplies to prepare self-catered breakfasts. After unloading our food for tomorrow morning into the fridge we decided we had better grab some dinner before it got any later. We stayed local and ate at May Feito just a sort way along the Rua de St. Catarina from our apartment. The restaurant had Porto’s signature sandwich on the menu – the Francesinha. They had two versions, the basic and the especial so we both decided to try the especial … with the egg and French fries!!

From our guidebook we knew that meat, a lot of meat and cheese was involved, but nothing prepared us for the cheese covered brick topped with an egg that arrived on a superheated plate drenched in the francesinha sauce! Bernie dubbed the sandwich a heart attack on a plate! When I say a lot of meat, I believe the sandwich contained steak, sausage, ham, mortadella and chorizo?? Bernie ate all of his and helped me to finish mine. OMG, it’s just as well we missed lunch, this sandwich has more than made up for it.



Steps: 12,066 (8.06 kms)

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Comments

[Caroline Brunner]

Porto
Please be careful in Porto. I had my back pack 'picked' - money, cards, passport ALL GONE ! I did not know that all the 'friendly' people milling outside the cathedral were gypsy pickpocket gangs working in tandem !! So watch your surroundings VERY CAREFULLY. The police told me that gypsies are a major problem & they hang around all the tourist spots. So please take care.