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Published: February 16th 2006
Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!
And we heard that far too many times on 'Straya Day. Here's me with Nomes, Becky and Dan. 'Ola! This blog recounts my trip to Portugal last month, my first journey to the continent and a much-needed escape from the drudgery of London in mid-winter. Back in December, Kate (genius friend who masterminded the trip to Scotland) suggested we take advantage of the new year seat sales that the discount carriers (Ryan Air, Easy Jet, etc) put on in January to lure desperate, pale-skinned and swollen Londoners away from their few quid remaining from the excesses of Christmas. And frankly, a trip to the continent is far less expensive than the consequences of the new year sales here in London, where one could find themselves in a total frenzy of bargain heaven. Anyhoo, having been swept away
by another of Kate's brilliant ideas, I found us flights for a weekend trip to Porto, Portugal for GBP70 return. And Kate found us a 5-star hotel for GBP96 for the two nights for both us! Yippee!! Finally, after five months here, I am beginning to appreciate the buying power of the pound... So, after a boozy, messy 'Straya Day on 26th January, which I spent with some mates at the Temple Walkabout pub staggering around singing "Your The Voice" at the top of our lungs, scoffing meat pies and drinking Tooheys New (all the while wondering how I could possibly have drunk that shit when I was back at home), Portugal beckoned with promises of cheap wine, cheap seafood, sunshine and escape.
Now, the great thing about these cheap airlines is that they are, well, cheap. The drawback is that they fly from airports like Stansted, which is a good hour from London, at the most inconvenient hours. Getting to Stansted from anywhere other than north London is a royal pain in the bum. And after you factor in the transit costs, the time it takes, and then the queuing up like cattle to get a decent seat
on a flight of about 300 people, none of whom are allocated seats, well, Heathrow starts to look like a model of cost-effective and time-efficient travel. After taking a tube to Liverpool Station to catch a bus to Stansted, failing to find the coach station and missing the bus so instead buying an expensive ticket at double the price for a train trip to the airport and then stopping to buy a snack because I was so tired, hung over and and pissed off then finding myself running frantically along the platform as the train pulled away, I wasn't so sure I was actually supposed to go to Portugal. Indeed, I was already cutting my time very tight. I finally caught the next train to Stansted, sobbing in my seat between mouthfuls of an entire family block of white chocolate (organic, mind you - I'm on my new year's health kick) and found myself at the check-in counter with mere minutes to spare. Kate was wonderfully relaxed about it all - "I am just amazed that it was you instead of me!" she exclaimed. Clearly, she is only just getting to know me again.
Of the cheap carriers, RyanAir
is about as cheap as it gets. And you really get what you pay for. The flight to Porto was less than two hours, but seemed to take forever because Kate and I somehow managed to seat ourselves in front of quite possibly the most obnoxious, vacuous and pointless people on the planet. Which would have been fine had they not also spoken english, very loudly. (They were teachers, apparently - great to know the future of the UK rests in such moronic hands). So we had to endure a conversation that was far less amusing, witty and engaging than the participants thought it to be. After Kate rather gently pointed this out to them, they took to heckling her too. And this is where the cheap carrier thing proves its value - had we been flying BA or some airline that actually served food to be eaten with utensils like knives and forks, it is highly possible our travel companions would not have survived the journey. Unfortunately, without a weapon to protect my sanity, I took instead to gently beating my head against the window as I watched us flying along the Spanish coastline.
Portugal hosted the Euro2004,
A Fishing Boat
I just thought this was a nice boat. and Porto was a key host city for many of the games and teams that participated. This was the explanation given to me upon enquiring why we had landed at what appeared to be the world's largest, coldest, shiniest and most empty airport. . Porto is a city of more than 700,000 inhabitants and it's fair to say that the airport had ensured there would be seating and parking spaces available for each and every one of them. I am guessing our pilot was a fan of Porto's newly laid tarmac, because he came flying in to land at such a pace that you could hear the murmurs of amazement around the cabin when we touched down with not even a bump, because he brought that baby down at warp speed.
After a ridiculously long wait in the cold for a taxi, we found an Aussie couple, Ian and Nerida - also on our flight, also there for a weekend escape from London. We exchanged sympathies on our mutual suffering at the teachers (Ian and
Boats on Douro River
These boats were used by the Port makers for tours on the river. Nerida were seated across the aisle and so also privvy to their scintillating repartee), found a taxi and headed into town. Our luxury hotel was, we discovered, not quite as central as we'd thought but it was Mecca for us after the frustrations of the journey and, after pigging out on room service and me falling asleep in the bath for a few hours, we crashed.
Saturday we woke to sunny blue skies, and headed off around midday to explore the old, historic area of Porto. Now, before I go any further: should you require any information actually relating to the city of Porto, any historical info or descriptions of historical buildings, fun things to do, ect, can I direct you to the following website: http://www.portugalvirtual.pt/_tourism/costaverde/porto/ukcity.html. This is because everything Kate and I did pretty much related to shopping, eating, and drinking, and not much else. Oh, I took a few photos of cool Portugese things in Porto, but that's about it. Now that's out of the way, on with the story! On the way into town, we walked along the Douro River, crossed at lengthy intervals by some rather magnificent, vertigo-inducing bridges (see photos). We came across two
Bridge over Douro River
This bridge connected the old historical part of Porto with the port cellars and village across the river Portugese gents who were fishing, cooking their catches (sardines) on a small coal BBQ and eating them on crusty bread with home-made port. Kate and I don't speak a word of Portugese and they didn't speak a word of English (bizarrely, we managed to find some commonality in a few weak attempts at rather lousy French) but, with ample gesticulation, it was enough to communicate that I wanted to take their photo, to which they obliged and then offered for us to sample their cooking. With the fresh air, the sunshine, the walk along a beautiful river and freshly cooked fish on bread with port, I found this all to be a rather wonderful start to the day. We said our many 'obrigad's', (thankyou), pushed on and, after a while, found a small restaurant for meal number two. Here were were introduced to the concept of couvert - fortunately I already knew to be ready for this sneaky trick disguised as very generous freebies that miraculously appear when you arrive at the table. Having read enough of the Lonely Planet Guide to learn that this stuff is actually quite a pricey starter, I was all ready to knock it back
until I saw the marinated olives, fresh goat's cheese, home-made breads and pate. Needless to say, resistance was futile and Kate and I promptly tucked right in. Apparently Portugal's national food is tripe. I can assure you I went nowhere near anything that had the letters 'trip' in it, and stuck to seafood which was quite simply superb, made all the more enjoyable because it was so affordable. I definitely indulged...
After meal no 2, Kate and I hoisted our swollen bellies and wandered into the historic area of Porto where we quickly burnt it all off wandering up steep, narrow, cobble-stoned streets lined with four and five storey apartments from which people hung their washing, doorways from which people sold all manner of housewares and clothes and had established tiny little diners and convenience stores and - in some cases - erected the most ghastly religious shrines. It was quite fascinating, but I found myself often distracted by the constant need to dodge the aerial bombs dropped by pigeons and the landmines left by the dogs that freely roamed the streets. Kate and I often sought refuge in the trendy little boutiques, picking up some absolute bargains in
the process, and then headed across the river to the port cellars to commence our appreciation of Portugal's most famous export. Not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't a row of gleaming new buildings emblazoned with big signs screaming "Taylors" and "Grahams" and other very English names. I wanted dank old buildings with exotic, Portugese names. So we didn't do the cellars. Instead, we found a bar and got stuck into the good stuff. And then we moved onto meal number three, and more port, interspersed with a brief tour around some very crappy 'antique' markets. Kate talked me out of buying a set of ceramic garden gnome-head salt and pepper shakers (so freakish they were mesmerising), and I talked her out of spending something like 1000 euro on a solid silver vase. I am not sure whose purchase would have been the more useless or wasteful. Fortunately, we saved our money for our next stop - the famous port bar.
Are you still with me? This one's getting as long as the Christmas blog and I'm only recounting two days!! Read on...
So we went to a port bar recommended to us, which was actually
closed, but the sommelier (a very fun Swiss dude) let us in, re-closed the bar and treated us to a very comprehensive lesson in port tasting and appreciation. At this point I'd already sampled quite a bit of the local produce, so although I was very attentive throughout the entire lesson and I very thoughtfully sampled and critiqued the nine different ports we tried (50ml glasses of each, thanks), I don't recall much of what I learnt. But at the end Kate and I each bought a bottle of "the good stuff", a very tasty 10 year late-bottled vintage, and Kate splurged on a set of designer port-tasting glasses, so I think the dude was happy with the outcome of his 2-hour tutorial. Next stop was a top-notch restaurant called Don Tourho for meal number four where after ordering out meal froma set of rather aloof and unfriendly but very efficent waiters, Kate and I managed to put away a dozen of the freshest king prawns I've ever eaten, followed by a huge slab of monkfish. It was simply delicious. After that, back to the hotel for the deepest sleep I've had in a long time.
On Sunday we
both struggled to rouse ourselves before midday, and our stroll back into town was very leisurely and drawn out, including a wander around some lovely gardens with fabulous views of Porto and the Douro River. Portugal is a very catholic country and Porto was no exception, so absolutely everything but the most conveniently located tourist restaurants was closed. Consequently, we spent the majority of the day strolling around and languishing in cafe's, watching people go by and not doing much otherwise. I didn't feel the need to explore, partly because it was quite cold outside and also because I think I was finally beginning to unwind from the daily bustle of London (of which I hadn't even been back into a month since the Christmas and New Year holiday to Scotland!!). It was nice just to relax and do nothing...
We land eft Porto later that evening arrived back in London just after midnight on Monday morning, and caught a minicab back into London and home with Ian and Nerida, which was honestly a godsend - nothing less than door to door travel would have been tolerable at that hour, so we were lucky to have that option. It
A Porto street
Narrow, cobblestoned, steep, lined with pigeon crap and dog turds was a very enjoyable weekend holiday, and I do feel pleased to have another stamp in my passport. I don't think I will feel the need to return to Porto, but I am very glad we went.
In two weeks' time, I head of with friends to Chamonix in France for a weeks' skiing in the Alps. I plan to brush up on my very poor French skills before we go, and I am sure there will be plenty of times when I'm going to get it terribly wrong. But I will have fun trying....
Hope this finds you all happy and well!! Til next time.... C xx
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Danielle
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Hey Gorgeous, you have a way with words, it's great to follow you around in your adventure, thank you for the updates. Miss you lots! Dan