August 6 - Day Two

I may have burned my arms. Serves me right for not wearing sunscreen.

But perhaps it's better to start from the beginning.

There is a rooster outside our hotel. I may have to kill it. Richard notes that the roosters up north are much worse. Fantastic.

We brought a cell phone (my old iPhone 3) to use here, which took several tries to crack before we could use it. That should probably have been considered foreshadowing for how long it would take to find a shop to purchase a SIM card in.

We began with a walk through the neighbourhood near our hotel to find a shop. We ducked into a lottery shop to ask directions to the nearest mobile store, where the clerk and two old Portuguese women argued over the best place to send us. Side note, this was the first time I heard Richard actually hold a conversation in Portuguese. It was very cute.

They ended up agreeing and sent us down the road. When we got to the end of the street, we had the choice to turn left or right (Richard couldn't remember which one the ladies told him), so we chose to turn left and walk past the Clérigos Tower, just minutes from our hotel. It was closed, but the exterior was absolutely gorgeous.

Clérigos Tower

 Due to the city being on the river, the streets in Porto slope downwards towards the water, so we followed the road past the tower and ended up across the street from a pastry shop. Being hungry and ready to try some pastries, we stopped for a selection and some coffee and tea.

Breakfast!

The chocolate ones? Divine. Also, dangerous for my waistline. Do I care right now? No.

After our small diversion and another request for directions, we continued our hunt for a SIM card. We found city hall and the town square, but again, no mobile store. Richard decided to pop into a shop along the square to ask directions again, and finally got somewhere. Around the corner, we finally found a mobile shop that sold us a SIM card for 5 euros. Three shops, three pastries and one hour later, our phone finally worked.

After our adventure, we walked through the Porto train station and on to the Porto Cathedral before wending our way down the stairs to the ribeira (riverfront).

On the ribeira

We boarded a boat for the Six Bridges cruise along the Douro River, passing under or beside the six bridges in the city. The river was gorgeous, but hot! Hence, the possibility of having burned my arms. Thank the deity of your choice for body lotion.

After the cruise, we walked across the bridge to Vila Nova de Gaia, where port wine is made. It is apparently actually a separate city to Porto, but it never treated as such. We had tickets to the Croft caves with our tickets for the cruise, so in we headed. Our first sample was a tawny port, which was quite tasty. We were guided through the caves past huge barrels that age the wine, which can only be made in Porto (similar to how champagne can only be made in Champagne, France).

In the Croft caves

At the end of the tour we were given a taste of ruby port, which was a bit fresher but just as delicious as the tawny. Richard has now decided to look for a bottle from 1982 to bring home with us, as part of our celebration of his 30th birthday.

We decided to look for some lunch after our tour, and headed back across the bridge to Porto. We wandered back up the streets until we found a cafe, where I had my first tosta con queijo (grilled cheese). Um, Portuguese Fontina cheese? DELICIOUS.

After lunch we headed back to our hotel for a rest, because we're still jet-lagged obviously. After a snooze, we went out exploring to see what else we could find. We paid a visit to the Porto Music Hall before stumbling upon a mall food court for dinner.

After dinner we grabbed an ice cream bar (it's the Ice Cream Tour of Portugal!) and then back to our hotel for the night. Tomorrow we hit the road on our way to Figueira da Foz for the night. On our way we will hit Coimbra, Leiria, Batalha, Alcobaça and Nazaré. Porto has been beautiful, but I'm looking forward to beginning our road trip.