Food wine and history

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We arrive in Porto, Portugal's commercial hub, meet our friend Jose's family and share a lovely evening meal based around local meats, cheeses and wine. We have heard that quality food is important to the people of the North and already this appears to be true.

Jose guides us around some of the many sights of the city, starting with an espresso at the ornate Cafe Majestic in the downtown area. Its Keith's first coffee in quite a while and Tessa and I are a bit concerned about the effects, especially with sugar added and an accompanying chocolate.

We visit a famous old grocery store full of yummy delicacies and stroll through a vibrant produce market. Its refreshing to see this traditional type of shopping still available. Walking through the streets, we get more of a sense of the history of the place, with the street trams, cobbled pavements and grand old buildings.

There's a wide variety of architecture at the churches and cathedrals we visit, often designed to be awe-inspiring with lavish gilt figures and graphic representations of the crucifixion of Christ. Some of them are ornate beyond belief. One church with a very plain looking exterior, inside takes the Rococo style to the extreme. The level of skill involved to achieve this level of detail is incredible.

The Porto Cathedral with a view across the city is particularly impressive. Built in the 12th century with changes throughout the following centuries, it has a courtyard and additional chapels off the main church, all packed with tiled and painted wall panels, statues, furniture and artefacts from hundreds of years of the cathedral's history. We experience the superb acousitics of the church when we hear Ave Maria sung accompanied by the organ for a wedding. Its very moving, even for us visitors.

We stroll in the sunshine along the Douro River waterfront lined with cafes and bars and of course the famous port wine cellars. Its very picturesque with the old wine transporting vessels anchored beside the banks and tourist boats passing by.

After sharing a delicious traditional lunch of octopus and a variety of codfish dishes its time to take a tour of the port wine cellars. They're cool and dark with huge wooden vats, barrels and racks of bottles full of aging port wine and the whole place has a distinctive pleasant smell. We learn about the process but the best bit has to be what we've all been waiting for - at the end of the tour when we get a tasting or two of the product... hic!

And by the way, we all manage to survive Keith's coffee experience with no super-hyperactivity or ill effects at all.

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Photos

A famous grocery store
Founded in 1917

Port tasting
Jose, Tessa, Keith and me