As I mentioned, many tourists here, a lot more than we had expected. I seem to recall a few internet vacation sites recommending Porto as the number 1 destination place this year. I guess everyone took that to heart. It really is a great place to visit but we haven’t exactly done a whole lot here other than just poke around. There’s the usual things to see of course, fortifications, monasteries, and old churches but there’s also interesting geography and culture here. The city hills wind down to the river docks south and to the Ocean on the west. The old houses built on top of one another with their reddish roofs make for great photos from the numerous bridges that cross the Douro river. And across the river in Gaia, the old buildings work their way up the other embankment, this side being a mix of housing and, more importantly, all the well-known port wine houses. Taylors, Grahams, Warres, Offley, Burmester, Cockburn, and…you name it, they are all here to tour and taste.
We did not partake in that. Instead we wandered through the streets and along the river bank watching all the people, the interesting boats on the river, and soaking up some sun. We would like to have done a couple of port wine tours, but the lineups to get in to any of them were long and they do in fact charge for the tours. I’ve been on wine tours before and I kind of get the idea on how it’s made and bottled, so after weighing the pros and cons we decided to avoid the hordes, save time, and just buy a really nice bottle or two somewhere. It’s the drinking of it that’s the point, right?
We also wandered through a couple of markets on Saturday, like the one in Lisbon, but much smaller. The markets were part of a long walk to another graveyard which we’re kind of getting in to (it’s a bit concerning if you ask me). it was like Barcelona’s Mont Juic, but again smaller. Along the way we strolled down the main avenue which has a central park and monument, the Rotunda da Boavista, a 150-foot column with what looks like a large very angry lion on top of it smashing an eagle. It is dedicated to the solders of the peninsular war with the French back in 1808-1814. The lion symbolizes the alliance of the Portuguese with the British forces and I’m guessing the eagle is what’s left of the French after running into some tough troops in Porto.
Across the street from all of this is the Casa de Musica, which is as you guessed, a house of music, concert hall, and auditorium. It’s an interesting piece of architecture, looking like a floating cube with a red painted hand at the entrance. So, there you go, old, new, and weird. We like it here.
On the way back from the port district I decided to go for a Francesinha, you know, the Moby Dick sandwich. The best place in town was closed so we found another place that had some variations and I decided to ease myself into that experience. No fried egg and no beef but add the chicken. It was actually OK, but probably not the best representation of the genre since the restaurant looked a little like a Denny’s. Teresa thought it was just disgusting and that was one of her nicer adjectives. The search continues.
