pounding the Port in Porto

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Cruised into Porto about 5pm after a 4 hour train ride. Took a cab to the hotel which was about a 2 minute walk and a 2 minute funicular ride (or a 5 min walk updown a lot of old sketchy cobblestone stairs) from the river. Down along the river is a nice bridge off of Avenida de Gustav Eiffel and it looks like the bridge was designed by him too. We had some dinner at a nice little restaurant along the river, Leah forgot to bring enough money, so I had to boot it back to the hotel, but it was all good. Watched Troy subtitled in Portuguese and had an early night. Our neighbourhood where the hotel was was pretty dirty and seemed kind of sketchy at night, so we really didn´t feel like walking around exploring, plus we had all day the next day. Got up in the morning and headed across the bridge to Vila Nova De Gaia and did some tours of a couple major Port makers. The caves (cellars) are all in Vila Nova De Gaia, the actual grape picking and port making is done up the Douro river in the Douro valley a few hours away. Learned a lot about Port, like how they add Brandy to stop the fermentation process and blend different years batches to ensure the quality and consistency from year to year. Also, the vintage years are decided by an association controlled by the government and only occur 2 or 3 times per decade. Vintage bottles are kept such that they continue to mature in the bottle for up to about 100 years, and once you open it only have about 48 hours before they go bad...so if you are going to keep a bottle of Port..it better be vintage and you better have a good reason to drink it all and quickly. All the other stuff you get can be kept for a while, I guess a few years, and you have 7 or 8 months to drink it once you open the bottle. Picked up a few bottles of some choice brands, drank some beers and wine down along the river, ate some tapas and got ready to catch the train to Albufeira for our much anticipated beach rest. Now the real good times were about to begin.

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Photos

the Eiffel bridge?
on the Porto side of the Douro river..the other side is Villa Nova De Gaia

Porto from Villa Nova De Gaia
from the other side of the river

Leah gets that look in her eyes
that's Port in them there HUGE vats. They have lots of these.

Comments

[anonymous]

ya beach rest baby