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Published: October 7th 2018
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Portugal first got on my radar when I had some clients of mine talk about recent trips they had there. They talked about the culture, the food, the relative safeness and how reasonable the cost was. Then I had some co workers take a trip there and thier pictures were inspiring. Needless to say I did a little digging on my own and put it on my travel list. The main areas that get traveled in Portugal are the north, Porto and the Douro Valley, the Algarve down in the south, known for their cliffs and green sea, and of course Lisbon. My first stop was Porto.
Porto is part of the Douro valley. Wine country. This is the birth place of port wine and also the main reason that Portugal got it’s name. I had arrived on a Monday via Amsterdam, and came to meet my new apartment for the next couple of days on rua Ferreira borges. Close to the river and a short walk to Praça da Liberdade, the main centre of town. I feel the best way to get to know a city is to just get out and walk it, so I threw on
my shoes and went for a walk down along the river. The city streets were all cobblestone. And the city was built up on a hill. This makes the walking around a little more strenuous, but also helps in burning all the treats your eating. The buildings and houses were painted in pinks and yellows and greens. A lot of the buildings were plastered with intricate tile on thier facade, and I think almost every one was topped off with red Spanish style roof tiles. The tile designs were something I’ve never seen before and is quite unique to Portugal. White tile with Dark blue seem to be the norm and the most traditional tile, but I also saw a lot of browns and greens. I started wandering up thru the small narrow alley ways, discovering hidden churches and parks. It’s actually fairly easy to cut thru any of these neighbourhoods and get to the main centre of town. When I say easy I mean in terms of length. Definitely not effort. My legs and butt were burning by the time I would get to the top of one hill, only to find and other hill waiting for me. I
found my way to Praça Gomes Teixeira, a large pedestrian square close the the Clérigos church. I was amazed at how many tourist there were. Every where I looked, people were holding maps or their Porto guide books. All looking confused and amazed at the same time. I related to that feeling at that moment, but that didn’t last long. This city is very easy to find your way around, and by day two I had a general knowledge of where I was.
Day 2 I had a food tour scheduled. I was really excited for this as of course, I love food. And it would be a great opportunity to taste some of the local flavours. I had a little time before the tour started so I headed towards Livraria Lello, the d’amour book store. It’s been named one of the coolest book shops in the world. It dates back to 1881, and the architecture inside is Incredible as is the stain glass on the ceiling. But let’s get real about it for a second. It was also the book shop j.k. Rowling would visit when she was teaching English in Porto, and it gave her her inspiration
to write Harry Potter. This little fact is, I embarrassingly have to say, is the reason I wanted to see it. It is also the reason why you need to pre buy tickets at the store down the street and wait in a long queue just to get in. It was only €5 and that can go towards the purchase of a book. So well worth it. You can tell with the pamphlets they give out and the way the store is still very much running as a book shop that although they probably appreciate the extra income from the Harry Potter fandom, they very much stick to themselves as a historic book shop founded by two brothers. Very much worth the stop.
Next up was the food tour. Met up with our guide Miguel. ( all the men’s names here are Miguel or Bruno or João or Pedro.) There was a Canadian newly wed couple, a very Newley wed lesbian couple from San Francisco and an older couple from Pittsburg. Miguel first took us to his favourite bakery and got us little sampling’s of the traditional pastries. The Pastel de Nata , the crème brûlée version of an
egg tart- personally find the actual pastry of this too chewy. Was hoping it would be flakey and melt in your mouth more, not tug of war with your teeth...
Bola de Berlim, a crème puff kinda thing with a thick custard inside- delicious. And tarte de amendoa. An almond tart that is dense and chewy. And really sweet. This was the clear favorite of the rest of the group. I would give it a runners Up.
Next was a quick stop at a local cafe. Very Parisian with high ceilings and black and white floor tile. This was actually a sister restaurant to one of the famous tourist spots in town. Same owner. Same food. Half the price. The owner has said the reason why the tourist cafe ( cafe Majestic) was double the price was because the tourist would pay it. So lesson to the tourist out there. Pricier and busier isn’t always the best. Everyone was having thier afternoon espresso while Miguel had gotten me, the non coffee drinker, a barley type drink that was to resemble coffee but have no caffeine. Well I’m here to report that Indeed it taste like coffee. Which I don’t particularly
like. So that’s all I can say about that. After he took us to a local market where his god mother was working. She let us sample the Portuguese style of chorizo and blood sausage she made herself. We tried different olive and these weird bean type things, and rounded out the market with some almond cookies from the local bakery. One of the ppl in the group had notice that behind this lovely Portuguese Grandma selling her baguettes and cookies, was a bread shaped like a penis. We Inquired if that was actually what it was , and Indeed it was. I’m not exactly sure if this was to have meaning , as she has said it was good luck to have it, or if this was one of those super weird traditions that started off with a couple of drunk bakers saying,” now I got an idea..” but either way it was weird and even more disturbing the way she was stoking the bread. But in the end irony won and the newly wed lesbian couple got the penis bread good luck wishes from weird grandma.
Ps. The bread was super hard....
The last couple stops we went
to a really local spot, I don’t know what to call it as it wasn’t a bar or a restaurant. Kinda like a deli with chairs? These old men were working behind the counter, different generations of men whose lives revolve around the selling of thier cures Meat. Legs of cured pork meat hung from the ceiling. We sat down and received two plates with a smoked and cured thinly sliced ham. Just like Italian prosciutto, melt in your mouth and tasty. We were also given vinho verde, or green wine.
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