Happy New Year!!!

 

 What a celebration! What a party! What a fun time we had ringing in the New Year in Porto's main square with the rest of the city. It was comfortable, not too crowded, very happy and friendly with multi-generational families together in small groups, babies in strollers bundled up, kids dancing with their parents to keep warm. Bottles of bubbly and confetti crackers in hand, they gathered along Avenida dos Aliados, now closed to vehicular traffic, lining the sidewalks, sitting on stoops and planters alike, vying for the best view of the stage at one end, the clock tower at the other.
On stage, Pedro Abrunhosa, a seemingly well-known Portuguese performer, sang songs that everyone knew the words to, that everyone danced along to, that got the crowd moving and excited for what was to come. Nearer to midnight, the street lights dimmed, the music swelled and all eyes turned to the clock tower.

 
The stroke of midnight, and the coming of the new year, was announced not by chimes, but by the popping of fireworks, of confetti crackers and of a thousand Champagne corks. Bubbly flowed, toasts were made, and raisins eaten while making wishes for the coming 12 months. And all the while, the fireworks continued to sparkle overhead, lighting up the entire square(at one point, they even lit up a nearby building, but that's a story for another time).
Families danced, and hugged, and the happy atmosphere continued all the way up the hill, through the alleys leading from Aliados, to Torre dos Clerigos, up to the university where another party was just beginning. It followed us even as we returned to the relative quiet of our hostel, what with everyone being out for the celebrations. Once home, we sent our messages of happiness and good wishes to those who had not yet arrived in 2016, and those who already were. We lay quiet on our bed, listening to the party continue on outside, where the happiness spread throughout the city of Porto for the rest of the night.

A day at the beach!

The other day, on our way to Coimbra, while watching the ocean speed by us, Mario and I noticed a very long, very nice-looking boardwalk running along a good part of the beach, weaving in and out of the dunes. I made a note of it in my guidebook when we reached the next station, especially since it was located relatively close to the beach, for us to return here. Today, the opportunity presented itself to take advantage of our discovery, given the warm weather and sun peaking through the clouds, and visit the ocean for a while. We hopped a local train, for the same price as a coffee by the way, and headed out.

We arrived in the coastal town of Espinho, and walked no more than 2 streets over and the beach spread out before us like a giant, welcoming, warm blanket. Some people were out, mostly with dogs in tow, also taking advantage of the mild day for a stroll. A few fishermen lined the water, perched on the rocks of a breaker, trying their luck against a fairly violent sea. We've been seeing a lot of nasty weather lately, with more to come, and it was very visible in the temperament of the waves. Crests of 15 feet broke straight up into the air upon impact, sending frothy surf along the sand and around our feet. It was immense and powerful and made you really respect the edges of the walkway!
We made our way to the start of the Boardwalk out of Espinho, but not before hitting the grocery store for the makings of a delicious picnic. We found a nice spot on a high dune above the water, alone on our stretch of beach, and tucked into slices of cheese and chourico, pieces of apple and Morcela - a blood sausage, a local specialty. We sipped vinho verde straight from the bottle, and I think it tasted even sweeter because of it. Our only company were the waves, and an errant poochie that snuck up without warning, sniffed the sweet air a moment, then disappeared again.

After lunch we continued walking until we reached a break in the sand, where we assumed the next town, and next train station were. Unfortunately, a quick look down the rail line showed no sign of a station, and rather than continuing for what could be an eternity of walking, we retreated back to Espinho and the station we knew was there. Of course, once we boarded the train back to Porto, we realized that the next station, Granja, was only another 500m from where we had stopped searching. Figures!

A little more exploration, a little more port to taste

Mario's blog - stardate 30122015

It seems that late December weather in Porto consists of one day of sun, and one day of torrential downpour. The forecast for the day called for yet another 100% chance of getting soaked if you are anywhere out of doors, but slogging through the rain is still preferable to hiding out in the hotel room watching Netflix.

Today's plan is to walk to Afurada, described as a typical, authentic fishing town somewhat untouched by the tourism wave hitting Porto in the last decade. The trouble was, the town is 6 km from our hotel, the Poet's Inn, the deluge was bound to hit sometime today, and by now, you know that we are going to be walking!

We passed through Villa Nova di Gaia without a drop falling on us, and this time, we were actually able to see the town, as it was not hidden by a curtain of rain. We paused to admire carpenters repairing damaged wooden tour boats and old port barges in a small dry dock. In the old days, the port barges were used to ferry barrels of Port from the Quintas(estates) in the mountains upriver down to the Warehouses in Gaia, where the product would be stored and aged. In the days before the damming and taming of the river, the Douro was very wild, and driving the barges was a very dangerous job. You see, the grapes needed to be grown in the mountains where climate and soil would provide better flavour, but the Port had to be stored near ocean where temperature and humidity levels remain stable. We learnt all this over many glasses of port at Graham's, but we'll come to that later.
Partway on our journey, we noticed a large, abandoned mansion up the hill, just behind what looked like an RV parking lot. Naturally, I had to go up and explore the ruins. It was a fun side trip, climbing and exploring the building in a sad state of decay, but we were never able to determine the history of the place, nor did we find any hidden treasures to plunder.
By noon, our luck was still holding up with the weather, and we finally arrived at Afurada just in time to smell the local restaurants throwing the first fresh fish on their grills. Our noses led us to a local eatery, where we ordered a plate of grilled sardines, a quintessential Portuguese dish. Served with a simple green salad, homemade bread, a bowl of boiled potatoes and a glass of white wine, the meal was simply delicious. Worth the walk.

Well, by now, the drizzle was just starting, so it was time to head back towards Porto, but first, we had another port house to visit. Graham's was recommended by many tour books as offering a good tour, and good port, but what the books didn't tell you is that the estate is a grueling climb up winding streets that have no sidewalks and a lot of bus traffic. Cathy gave me the "this better be worth it" look more than once before we found the estate.
It was worth it. The tour was good and the tastings generous. Considering ourselves port experts after  visiting only one port house thus far, we spent many minutes discussing the merits of what we were tasting today versus all the other ports we have had(one other house's offerings, and the cheapest stuff you could buy at the SAQ). I contented myself with just detecting the basic flavours - sweetness, fruitiness, oakiness - while Cathy was showing off her oenological skills by detecting hints of pepper, chamomile, candied citrus and even pumpkin(?).
When our tasting had ended, we looked out the window to see that the promised monsoon had finally hit. There was no way we were making it back to Porto without a rubber raft, so we chose a better option: another glass of port! (ed.: Sadly, that too ended and we eventually had to brave the storm and return from whence we came, albeit a little wetter than before. Good thing we had had all that port to keep us warm! - Cathy)

Going back to school

 

Finally, a sunny day! We've basically been checking the weather forecast every 5 minutes now to see if the rain will ever stop, and the promise of a sunny day gave us very little time to see everything. We wanted to do a cruise up the Douro River, to see the vistas and terraced vineyards along the way, but this being the off season, those particular tours are only available on weekends. Of course, we didn't know this, so Mario and I skipped breakfast at the hostel to make a mad dash down to the waterfront, hoping to book a place before the day's departure. The tourism office being locked told us that we had gotten our hopes up for nothing. We consoled ourselves with coffee and chocolatey pastries next door.
We then opted to climb the breakneck stairs up the valley wall to the top of the Dom Luis I bridge, to see the sun bathing the city in its golden light - for once. The views of Porto and, across the river, Villa Nova de Gaia, were magnificent and colorful and lively and way better than I could've expected. My camera was happy to get more than grayscale shots.
On top of the bridge is located a crossing for pedestrians and trains ONLY and so it go us thinking that this beautiful, sunny day might be the perfect day for a train ride, to travel south to the town of Coimbra, where the country's oldest university is located. Off to the station we skipped, purchased a pair of return tickets, and soon we were on our way down the tracks!
We arrived in Coimbra and lo and behold, the sun was STILL shining! The river glimmered across from the town where we began our steady hike uphill. You see, Coimbra and its university were built on a hill, within fortifications, to protect it from invasion. It was an easier location to protect, but this makes it a harder location to access, particularly by pedestrian tourists, like ourselves. Lots of steep hills, lots of stairs to climb - and we all know my thoughts on stairs...Yes, well. Not impressed. It was slow-going, with lots of photo breaks, let me tell you. In the end, we did make it to the top. Then we went back down for a quick lunch!
Back in the university square, we headed for a visit of the old library. Only a certain number of people are let in at a time, as the tomes inside, and library itself, are so old that too much humidity will cause them to age too quickly, and humans are humid little beings. It was magnificent, see all those incredibly old books, caged up on ornately carved wooden shelves on two different levels, accessible by recessed ladders and hidden stairs. The three rooms have fantastic trompe d'oeil painted ceilings with university-base themes, and are painted in matching colors of green, black and red to go with the chinoiserie tapestries hung from the balconies. What a majestic place to study! And imagine that one can still come study in this magnificent library! You have to prove a very good reason to need to reference the volumes available, and can browse them only under VERY strict conditions. Onwards!
We crossed the square to the main administrative building, home of the hall of scholars, where we would normally have been able to visit, except for the fact that someone was defending his thesis in order to obtain his Ph.D. It must have looked funny, from his point of view, all the camera-faced tourists peering through the upper windows, snapping shots of him from above, like paparazzi. Following the same upper halls, we emerged to a quiet walkway on a rooftop, behind the building, overlooking the back of the university and the sun-bathed hill below us. Here, we snapped a bunch of pictures like paparazzi.
We wasted a lot of the day just wandering all the narrow laneways surrounding the university, trying not to get lost, discovering Republicas, the Portuguese version of frat houses. Eventually, we found ourselves back at the bottom of the hill, sitting at a cafe, soaking up the last lingering rays of warmth while we tucked into good coffee and creamy custard tarts, Pasteis de Nata. Not long after, we boarded the train, content with the satisfying day in the sun, and looking forward to the new adventures tomorrow would bring, even if it did bring a little rain along for the ride.

Rain, rain, GO AWAY!

 

It rained. ALL DAY. And not the, "Oh, I'll just take out my umbrella and dance around the puddles" kind of pretty rain you see in the movies. No, this was category 5 typhoon, horizontal-falling sheets of rain, the kind that blacks out an entire city from view. And we decided to go for a walk! How about that?!

It almost looked promising - the morning started off wet, but by the time we had finished breakfast at the hostel, the rain seemed to be letting up, so we packed our umbrellas, donned our raincoats and set out for city exploration, and I almost regretted having left my sunglasses back in the room. Almost.

Just as we were climbing the steps to the church of Saint-Francis, big drops began to fall again, so we decided, hey! let's go visit the church. And so we did - the church, the crypt, the museum and administrative apartment, where Mario wanted to sit on the big velvet chairs until we saw they were the same as the ones in the painting on the wall from the 1800s, and decided against it. The rain began to let up, so we continued on.

We weaved a path through narrow cobblestone streets, heading lower and lower towards the waterfront, the Douro River and the Dom Luis I bridge. This bridge was built by a student of Gustave Eiffel, and you know what he built, so the similarities are striking. We crossed on the bottom deck to the other side of the water, and into Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto's twin city, where all the Port "lodges" are. Good place to be, if you ask me.
Feeling peckish, we got a quick bite to eat at a sandwich shop that looked like it had been around since the 60s, but made a mean vegetable soup, and finished up just in time for the sky to open up again. Umbrellas at the ready, we braved the water to continue our walk along the river, as Mario wanted to visit Graham's, where the tours were supposed to be good.

Somewhere in the middle of our trek is when the monsoon hit. Total downpour. So we found shelter under an awning, blocking the rain splash from our feet with the umbrellas, waiting for a break in the storm. It was very reminiscent of a trip to Civita in Italy last year, though we were WAY more prepared this time around.

A break did finally come, if briefly, and we continued our walk down the now flooded streets, avoiding the splash from speeding cars and buses, as well as the overflowing downspouts from rooftops, unable to cope with the sheer amount of water. A sewer was overflowing. It was wet. We were wet - so when we arrived upon our first port lodge, Churchill's, we decided it was a good time to stop and dry off for a bit. And if that failed, at least we would be drinking enough port wine to not care about how wet our pants were.
Churchill's, initially not on our radar at all, turned out to be a fantastic find. Mario and I bought 2 different tasting flights to share, and the portions were very generous, so between the two of us, we had 6 delicious glasses of port to taste and savour. Our server gave us all the notes that we needed to enjoy each type, and we left with a 10-year Tawny Port in tow. Good afternoon, I think.

All through the tasting, we watched out the windows, as the rain continued to fall and not fall, fall and not fall. Unfortunately, we timed our departure badly, and ended up leaving during the "falling" phase, though it wasn't as bad as it had previously been. We returned to the Porto side of the river and rode the funicular(you can't spell funicular without "FUN"!) up the side of the valley to the top of the city. From here, Porto spread out before us like a great colorful maze, and the views would have been spectacular with just a little sun.

We stopped briefly at the Se, Porto's Cathedral, before returning to the hostel for dry socks. Traveling is so much better with dry socks. Then we began our evening's search for that hidden gem, hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and boy, did we ever find it! Even better, it was literally a hole in the wall. Like built in the space between two stone walls, cavern-like back table, heated by wood stove. It was awesome, and the food tasted AMAZING!
We began with a glass of bubbly each, Mario opting for the red(!), with a platter of local cured meats and cheeses, all hand-cut and beautifully presented. Mario also had a simmered pork cheek, with olive oil and rosemary, that was so flavorful and fall-off-the-bone tender, with a tiny bit of marrow still hiding in the bone.

We continued with some crispy fried Portuguese-style calamari pieces with tomato rice and beans, and a dish of simmered tripe, a local specialty, stewed with white beans and carrots and cured sausage, scented with cumin and coriander. Delicious and rich, the dishes reminded us of crisp fall days, hearty stews and warm sweaters. Perfection.
And lo and behold, by the time we left, the rain had stopped.

Ramble on

Today was a travel day, in the truest sense of the word. Sometimes, travel days are the days when we move from one city to the next, by bus or by train, and only for a few hours or so, allowing us the liberty to explore some in the morning, but not usually, and explore again in the evening, upon our arrival. Today we traveled.

First by metro, in Paris, where my wonderful sense of direction led us to the wrong station. How was I to know there were 2 metro stations in Paris that go by the name La Chapelle, but one is a door and the other is not?!? Up the stairs, over the tracks, back down we went, to retrace our steps. We took 3 more metro lines than necessary to get to Gare du Nord.

Next by RER, which is really a train, but don't tell the Parisians that. You call it a train, they get confused. Regardless, we took the RER to the airport - but not all the way to the airport, because there was a problem at the station for Terminal 2, where we needed to be, of course, so we only got as far as Terminal 1.

Here we crammed into the airport shuttle with all the other confused international travelers looking to get to Terminal 2 and rode the lamest excuse for a roller coaster I have ever seen. Because that's what it looked AND felt like - a reeeaaalllyyyyy ssssllllllooooowwwww roller coaster, filled with suitcases and people.
Now comes the big time traveling: After a short respite from all movement, where we mailed some postcards and relaxed at the gate, we boarded our comfortably short and roomy flight to Lisbon. Roomy, you say? Why yes, I did say roomy - we lucked out and scored the emergency row seats on the plane, with their bucket loads of leg room. I guess we looked like able-bodied, responsible adults should the need arise to deploy an inflatable slide or something.

Landing in Lisbon, we needed to commute from the airport to the city's main rail station, Oriente, and that was easily done by way of metro. Super-easy, bought the tickets through an automated machine, where the Italian family next to me cheated off my technique(I pressed the "English" button). 

Insert here a brief intermission here for a coffee break, snack break and bathroom break.
We transferred to our ride to Porto, the Alfa Pendular train, which travels at awesome speeds of over 200km/h and leans into its turns. Its leaning motion (the pendulum) induced a sort of slight motion sickness when we tried to read, though, so I wouldn't suggest anyone try this if ever riding one. Instead, we snacked on bread and apples and a tiny wheel of Alentejo sheep's cheese that was creamy and tangy. And All Bran bars, since Mario keeps insisting he's going to feed me nothing but All Bran for the rest of the vacation, to stabilize my questionable digestive system, and never came through on that promise.

We arrived in Porto after dark, with the streets lights of the city sparkling in the waters of the Douro river. At this point, we were just about ready to call it a day, but our train arrives at Campanha station, and our hostel was next to Sao Bento station, so we buck up for one last transfer, this time by local train which was luckily included in the price of the AP ticket. Finally, we disembark at Sao Bento, on solid land, and without a set of wheels under us.

Now, if you were keep track for points, our grand total of travel looks like this:
1 - Paris metro
2 - RER
3 - CDG airport shuttle
4 - Air France plane
5 - Lisbon metro
6 - Alfa Pendular
7 - Porto local train

That is far too many forms of traveling in one day. But we made it to Porto, which, so far, is a surprising and beautiful city. You see, we did get out after all of that movement, to walk about the neighborhood around our hostel, pick up few savory pastries to munch on, admire the Christmas lights around the main plaza, and catch the end of a San Sylvestre foot race happening this evening. And even after all that, we are still looking forward to the traveling that we will be doing tomorrow.