Porto

---

So now having got ourselves here, it all felt a bit underwhelming at first having left Viana da Castello and all that it had to offer. We find ourselves in Leixoes marina close to Porto feeling and sounding quite industrious, the city itself being a bus ride away.

It is impossible to be in Porto and not taste the Port wine. We found the most idyllic location to taste their varieties, in the grounds of a stately home looking out over the city, the river Douro and out to sea. Ah, this is the life. That was all after a rather unexpected encounter with a blind man in the park. He was looking for his bus stop and couldn’t find his way out of the park with his stick alone and was looking for help. The trouble was, we didn’t know where he was looking for and not being in the slightest but adept in Portuguese we weren’t in a position to help the man out by ourselves. We walked on a little to find to park groundsmen to ask them. They happily just reeled off a bunch of directions. In broken Portuguese/Italian/Spanish with a bit of English and French thrown in for good measure we managed to eventually explain that we didn’t know where the gentleman wanted to get to, and we certainly didn’t know how to get to it, and he couldn’t see which was the right way. For a few minutes it was something close to see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, or similar. Still we got there in the end and the blind man was very grateful.

So, on we go and having found what must easily be one of the best bookshops in the world, here in Porto, we can easily while away hours (in between jobs on the boat of course - we can’t slack off too much as there’s a new crew coming out in a few days...). People go in there just to take photos. They have also an excellent selection of books in a variety of languages so it sucked an hour or so of our time easy.

Porto is a very easy place to like. There is something very relaxed yet honest and hard working about the place. Close by to the port there are some of the best beaches in the region filled with locals bathing during the day and surfers in the evenings - a great place to see the sun go down.

Today another group of friends will come join us so we’re getting ready to give them a whistle stop tour before heading down the coast to get to Lisbon for next weekend.

---