Day 4-5: Porto

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Day 4-5: Porto

Day 4: Porto

After a good nights rest via strolled down the street towards the old town center of Porto(read: we took the bus...the whole 45min worth of it!!!). Today would be nice if could start it with a nice and sturdy breakfast, so we went to our local diner and checked out some pastries. During our grand meal we prepared our visit of Porto.

So at 12h30 we decided to visit this little church called Igeja de Santa Clara, but when we finally arrived there it was closed for the afternoon siësta! Until 16h!!!!!! Apparently everything closed till 16h! So we sat ourselves down at the Avenida de Aliados at some public tables and chairs and I started typing a blogpost which we posted an hour and a half later. We began to realize that due to the siësta we wouldn't be able to visit everything in one day.

After our post we were able to explore the city and take some nice pictures ;-) unfortunately this also gave us some perspective on the city of Porto. This city is an ancient one. Many of the old house and buildings that are in the city are vacant, for sale or in such a bad state(majority of them actually) that living in them is impossible. This gloomy feeling follows wherever you go.

We eventually visited a Sé...yet again...with its beautiful rose stained glass window. Afterwards we entered a church, Igeja de Sao Fransisco with its elaborate altar. Continuing our journey through the city we descended the picturesque streets of the old town going straight to the Ribeiro district where all the old port wine boats are lying at the docks.

Our genius gen didn't fail us...because it was such a long bus ride to the camping and back we decided to pack up and move to the municipal camping site inside city boundaries. So fully packed we smiled goodbye to the lovely lady at the reception and set off in to the sunset.


45min bus ride into town and then ask our way around to the camping. So genius struck and camping closed three years ago! To proud, ashamed and thinking of tomorrow we set of to Espinho. This is a town half way down to Aveiro, our next stop. We chose this city because it is as far away as our previous camping site, but cheaper to travel with the train than with the bus and with the added bonus that we didn't have to face total humiliation in front of the receptionist.

We reached a new camping with some rather dark skies...so round about 6h all hell broke loose and it came in the form of a downpour and heavy winds from see that shook us awake and prevented us to sleep in again for a while of fear that the tent would stand the weather.

Signing off with pride of our genius

The backpackers

Day 5: Porto

The plan was to get at 8h30...kind of backfired...it was 10h! So already late, just missing the train, we set of to Porto once more. This time starting in Vila Nova de Gaia, officially an other municipal, but it's a part of Porto nonetheless! It is here that Port wine is stored for aging.
First we visited Taylors. They gave a short but very interesting tour of their cellars with the tasting of three kinds of royally port, chip dry, fine white, LBV 2002...For every good comparison you need two to begin, so we decided to visit Ramos Pinto port, this time we had to pay, so we thought that this tour was more elaborate and extensive than the previous one ....this tour was a Ramos Pinto tribute tour...not what we signed up for! But the tasting would make everything right we thought. Time proved us wrong again...two glasses, barely half full with port that wasn't even worthy of being called port in our expert opinion.

So we went back to Taylors to drink away the foul taste of Ramos Pinto juice with some expensive 40 anos Tawny Port. Do the math...how many glasses did we drink in a two hour time frame?

Afterwards we had to walk it of before we even could think about showing ourselves in the next house of God, Igreja de Santa Clara...remember, the first one we wanted to visit....Followed by a visit to the Mercado de Bolhao for our dinner and the Torre de Clérigos wich gave us some stunning views of the city and finishing of with the oldest bookstore of Portugal with the weirdest/most beautiful staircase a bookstore ever had.

Signing off with some fine Port wine

the Backpackers

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Comments

[dirk dierickx]

foto's
tof dat er nu al eens een persoon mee op de foto staat. Nu nog wat minder geposeerd... amuseer jullie nog verder dirk

[antonio]

zatlappen!
en maar poseren voor al die vaten porto!! En wij moeten het hier maar stellen met enkele flessen. We merken waar jullie interesse naar toe gaat.