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Published: November 21st 2012
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The Portugal Countryside
We were surprised to see the amount of open space there is in Portugal as viewed from our bus ride from Lagos to Porto. Some of the area is used for agricultural purposes while others are in their natural state. Now that we are overwintering in Lagos, Portugal we have decided to take advantage of the time and do some overland traveling. We choose to use public transportation for our travels to both Oporto (more commonly referred to as Porto) and to Lisboa (Lisbon). Conveniently the bus station is very close to the marina in Lagos and took us to Porto with only a half-hour layover in Lisbon on the way north. This was a great way to see some of the interior of the country as we traveled past fields of corn, rice, orchards of olive trees, cork trees and vineyards. We past open pit gravel mines, a large number of modern wind turbines and rolling hills covered with trees and scrub. Pigs, sheep and goats were grazing among the many orchards and many hills were dotted with one or two farm houses overseeing irrigated fields. There are mountains on both sides as you travel north which reminded us some of the Green Mts. of Vermont.
We left Lagos at 7:45AM and made it to Porto at 2PM (32 euro or $42/ person one-way). The buses are very comfortable with reclining seats and many had Wi-Fi. You could also
Impressive Town Hall
The town hall in Porto is an easy landmark with its very tall tower and its location at the top of a large square. buy a snack or drink on the bus similar to those offered on airplanes. Our first tasks was to find our hotel (pension) which was not the easiest to do but fortunately Kay had left us a map of Porto when she visited us earlier and we(Janice) are not afraid to ask directions. As we marched up and down streets with our backpacks on looking for our budget accommodations (105 Euros or $134 for 3 nights wasn’t bad) we felt like we were both back in our Peace Corps days. The lack of an elevator was somewhat disconcerting when we found out we were on the fifth floor and we had just hiked at least 3 km from the bus station UP hills, however we were very pleased by our room and the view. The pension had been remodeled recently and everything was new with a very sleek European look. We had been informed that we would not have wi-fi in our room, only in public spaces, but even that surprisingly worked (slow, but it was there).
After checking in we walked around town to get ourselves oriented and figure out the transportation system. The city of Porto is
Proud of their Native Son
Portugal is very proud of Prince Henry the Navigator as he was important for the age of discovery – he never explored himself, but trained others in his navigation school and made sure others had funds to do their explorations for Portugal. built along the river Duoro which over the eons has cut a very deep gorge that the city is built along. We had been warned that Porto was built on a hill and that we might want to get a day pass for public transportation. We always like to hike around freely so that we can turn “off the beaten track” if something catches our eye so decided to bypass the day pass. Our decision worked out well as we only used the funicular (trolley car that goes up very steep hills) once to travel up the hill from the river side. We did that for the fun of it and to see the view. The climb itself wasn’t half-bad having done it twice during our stay. As we explored the city we meandered through the many small alleyways and enjoyed the old world feel of Porto. We even traveled by boat while there - it only costs 10 euros ($12.70) for a 45 minute trip on the Duoro River which separates Porto from Gaia giving us a chance to see the 6 bridges that span the river and hear of their history. The impressive Dom Luis Bridge (double-decker) was
Full Moon
The corner store that we could see from our hotel window stayed open late lending some nice lighting for this photo taken of a full moon over Porto. opened in 1886 and designed by a collaborator of Eiffel. It was the longest metal bridge in the world at that time. Eiffel himself designed the Maria Pia Bridge in 1877 for the railroad while the newest and longest concrete single arched bridge in the world was built in 2003. The day we took the boat trip the sky was overcast, but the view from the water of the bridges and the city of Porto was remarkable. Port wine which is a mixture of wine and brandy originally came from Porto and thus the name of the wine. The vineyards are up the Duoro River near the Spanish border and the wine produced in those vineyards is transported to Porto where it is made into Port wine. The Port Lodges were built on the side of the river opposite Porto (in Gaia) because of the fact that this side of the river received more sun and therefore provided a more stable environment for aging the port wine.
For those of you that have seen the Harry Potter movie, we visited the Livraria Lello Bookstore. This is housed in a Neo-Gothic building complete with stained glass windows, carved wood, and
Views in the City
A few of the things we have seen: buildings that appear too narrow to be useful but restaurants flourish in, colorful fruit in a restaurant kitchen that makes a beautiful still life, dry cleaners that still have seamstresses that mend the clothes and painters along the riverside selling their paintings (yes, we have one now) a very impressive art noveau staircase used in the filming of the movie. We also noted that the University students here wear black capes as part of their uniform which is identical to the ones worn in the film. We learned the author, J.K. Rowling, lived in Porto for some time and actually did some of her writing here. We were not allowed to take photos in the bookstore, therefore if interested in seeing the interior you will need to google it to see the impressive double curved staircase.
One of the nights we were in Porto we heard lots of shouting in the streets. When we looked out our hotel window we saw lines of people who looked like university age students marching through the city shouting slogans. When we asked at the hotel what the marching was for we were told that when the University is in session there are plenty of times that they march, but he never knows why. A couple of nights later it was Halloween and we found that the students here party well into the night. The next morning the streets were littered with beer bottles and plastic cups. It is the
History Via Tiles
Even if you don’t need to catch a train, be sure to check out the Sao Benton train station in Porto. It was built in 1910, but the history of Portugal painted in detail on ceramic tiles were added in 1916 and are worth seeing. first time we actually have seen plastic cups used at all here. Many things we find to be different when we travel, and then again, many things are just the same.
Our first impression when we got to Porto was that of seeing spectacular architecture. It differed dramatically from anything we have seen to date since we started cruising. There are buildings from a variety of periods of time –starting from the 12
th century up through the early part of the 20
st century. With various renovations over the years many are a combination of styles which included Gothic, Romanesque, Renaissance, Baroque and Manueline. Many built in the early part of the 20
th century are adorned by magnificent ornamentation such as larger than life statutes and carvings. Ceramic tiles mainly in blue and white adorn many of the buildings and gold-gilded woodwork appeared in many of the churches we visited. We were able to view the gold gilding in the Sao Francisco Church with its underground cemetery and Gothic and Baroque exterior; view the original Gothic 12
th century rose window of the Se Cathedral; see the finest example of Rococo architecture in the Carmo Church; and marvel at the 1763
Fall Colors Here Too
Looks like we aren’t missing out on the fall color here! built Clerigo Tower (248 feet tall) which is attached to the first Baroque church built in Portugal and dominates the skyline.
Coming from the US we are always in awe of the buildings we visit that were built before our country was even discovered by Europeans. We used to think that the history that we felt when visiting Williamsburg was impressive, but since entry into Europe we are humbled by the history that is here. We have much to learn about the history of this area. We now know that we are only touching the tip of the iceberg, but as Portugal was one of the major players during the age of discovery we are finding this is a good place to start our explorations.
As we have a large number of photos from our trip, we are breaking down our blog entry into smaller blog entries therefore this will only cover the first few days of our trip. Hopefully we will be able to fill you in on Lisbon and Sintra in the next entries. As always, please be sure to scroll down if interested to see the rest of the 37 photos posted.
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