Porto

Saturday, August 12, 2023

It may be obvious, but we'll say it anyway. The name "Portugal" actually is derived from the city of Porto aka "Portus Cale", the name which the Romans gave to the city when they came in and took it from the Celts (yes! They were here!).  And of course, this city  (the second largest in the country) also gave its name to Port wine, which is produced all around the region.

Today's outing was a walking tour of the city. We had to cross over one of those 6 bridges to get there, as our marina is on the Gaia side.

When we disembarked from the bus, we discovered our starting point was the site of the Senior European Mini-Golf Championship!!!  Seriously. Men were walking around with putters and little bags containing who knows what. But there were no windmills or clowns in sight...just your basic tee-to-hole green course.

Anyway, we walked a bit and found that the first part of our tour would be on a tram (trolley car). Specifically, it was a 1929 built car which is normally stored in the "Electric Trolley Museum", and is only brought out for special groups. Yay us!!!    

It was a lovely ride along the shore, past much interesting architecture (narrow but tall residences from the 1800s) and then up into the town. Yes.....there are a lot of hills in Porto too!!!

Then, our guide took us on a walking tour, pointing out all of the churches, government buildings, the big railroad station. Of course, the streets and sidewalks are ALL cobbled.  And it was jammed with tourists. Unfortunately, many possible photo ops were obscured  because there was so much construction going on: the ubiquitous scaffolding to repair / restore old buildings, plus, right in the heart of town, a new subway line is being built! So between the pedestrians and the cars / buses it was bedlam.

Here is a sampling of what we saw:

One of the many, many statues of Henry the Navigator

A big building

A shopping street

Another building with tiles! Note the addresses....that's how narrow these residences were when they were first constructed

A confluence of shopping streets

Another important building with blue tiles!

Then our guide took us into a "grocery" store which has been in business for 3 generations. At the back of the store was an area where they had set up (just for us) plates containing a piece of sardine and a piece of mackerel (two of their specialties). They also served sparkling white wine. What a treat!!!

Note the special clip which holds the glass onto the plate. Ingenious! 

Then back into the throngs, down another block and into another grocery store...

 

This time, the special treat was local cheese and sausages!

Eeeesh!  Even if we were hungry after having the previous snack, cheese and sausage are not really our things.

At this point, the official tour for the day ended. We had the choice of staying on in Porto for another couple of hours or heading back to the ship. We opted for the latter.

It was another beautiful day, and they have ALL been perfect weather-wise so far; none of the excessive heat we had feared We thought that the fish snack would be enough to last us til dinner, but by the time the bus got us back to the ship we reconsidered. Since we never miss a meal, we grabbed some salad and mussels from the lunch buffet; we did not go for the 3 course extravaganza  Then, we decided to skip the vineyard tour and Port tasting and instead enjoy the perfect weather up on the sun deck for a few hours (and catch up on blog postings!). 

Before we knew it, it was time to eat again.

Tonight, Wendy started with the watermelon and kiwi tower--light and delicious. 

....Wayne stuck with the usual suspect - a Caesar salad for first.

Then Wendy enjoyed the carrot ginger soup. It was very spicy and very memorable.

Then lasagna Bolognese for Wayne (not a Portuguese dish, but looked too good to pass up!)...

...and the Sea Bream with vegetables and sweet Portuguese rice for Wendy.  Though others at the table did not like it, Wendy loved it.  Yum. 

Then we shared the chocolate lava cake with meringue and fruit. A delicious ending to a delicious day.  

We are still docked in the marina! Hopefully, we will set off at some point. The Douro is a rather short river (572 km in total, but only 213 km in Portugal), so the actual "cruising" part of this trip is pretty minimal compared to the total time we are on the ship.

Here are some fun facts we have learned:

> 60% of the country's energy needs are met by renewables; a combination of wind, solar, and hydro. They hope to get to 80% in the next few years. Portugal is 3rd in the EU in terms of energy efficiency (Denmark and Germany are first and second, respectively.)

> The unofficial motto of the country is "The 3 Effs". They stand for Fado (discussed earlier), Fatima (for the religious figure, but relating to religion in general), and Futbol!!  Music, religion, and sport pretty much covers the gamut.

That's all for Saturday.  Stay tuned. 

Love, 

w&w