Blogs from Porto, Northern, Portugal, Europe

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 ... read more

Porto is a busy industrial and commercial center. The city itself isn't very populous (about 240,000 inhabitants), but the Porto metropolitan area (Greater Porto) has some 1,500,000 inhabitants in a 50 km radius, with cities like Gaia, Matosinhos, Maia, Gondomar, and Espinho. The city was built along the hills overlooking the Douro river estuary, and its historical center was awarded World Heritage status by UNESCO in 1996. It has been continuously inhabited since at least the 4th Century, when the Romans referred to it as Portus Calle Porto has a semi-Mediterranean climate, although it's strongly affected by the Atlantic ocean, which makes it cooler than other cities with this climate. However, temperatures can rise as high as 40ºC in August during occasional heat waves. Winters are mild and humid, with occasional cold nights where temperatures can ... read more

It’s always exciting to enter a new country for the first time. Dealing with customs and making sure your paperwork is all in order is always a hassle. In the back of your mind there’s always a chance you’ll be taken to a back room with two way mirrors instead of windows, medical furniture and a box of rubber gloves for “questioning” too. Well, once you’re in the E.U. (European Union) and you want to jump around from one E.U. country to the next, it’s really no different than crossing state lines in the good ol’ U.S.A. Because of this, when we did finally see the Now Entering Portugal sign, it wasn’t nearly as exciting as anticipated. Kind of like crossing the Columbia River from Washington to Oregon (or the Red from MN to ND for ... read more

My motto in traveling is “Though you are a foreigner, always eat like a local.” So, if I am with friends who are natives of the country in which I am traveling, I ask them to order for me what they like to eat. If I am alone, I ask the waiter what they, or the chef, suggest. I end up eating many items that I would never be likely to try in the States, thus adding a delightful richness of experience to my overseas dining. This might seem like an obvious strategy for a traveler, but I think many times we want familiarity in our food and in the process miss out on the delights of a particular country’s food and culture. As an example, I travel regularly to Portugal for work, spending most of ... read more

Chá Convívio no Oporto Cricket & Lawn Tennis Club Domingo, dia 25 de Setembro 2011... read more