Porto

On the day of our flight we stopped by our last Parisian fromagerie and bought some nice French cheese that was recommended by the man working there. He was from Portugal, where we were heading! We also wanted to buy another bit of chocolate mousse, but they were sold out… We ate the cheese with a baguette in the airport while waiting for our flight to board. It felt like a fitting way to end our time in Paris.

  

This flight was the first of our trip not on a budget airline. Being provided simple snacks and drinks felt like luxury. When our flight landed, we were in Porto, Portugal!

Hungry, and eager to get our first glimpse of the city, we took a metro to the center to have a late dinner at a popular hamburger spot.  We’re back in thin fry land now. After burgers, we wandered around downtown Porto a bit and happened to stumble into the center of night life.  We didn’t particularly feel like partaking, but it was fun to walk down the crowded main street of bars. Even a very brief nighttime view of the city made us excited for our time here.

The next day we got to explore Porto in earnest. What a city it is! The weather was perfect. The streets really are all cobblestone. The buildings are painted in all different colors, and some are decorated with tiles. And most importantly, they all have bright orange roofs!

We spent a long time just wandering through the streets. The atmosphere was so pleasant. It’s hard to put your finger on differences between different cities. In so many ways they’re all actually quite similar. But especially to Monisha, something about walking around here felt particularly wonderful.  The shops were more fun for window shopping; some had appealing, simple necklaces, many have neat bags and shoes and such made of cork, and of course the bakeries are always delightful to admire.

We saw the most unusual street musician we’ve seen on this trip, though the music wasn’t what set him apart. He was playing an automatic street organ, but at the same time playing chess with his son (we assume). The dad had a bird on his shoulder, the son had one on his head, and next to them was a chicken sitting on a barrel. It was quite a scene indeed!

 We made our way to the river and walked along it on one side, crossed the bridge, and then walked along the other side. We saw a young guy with a GoPro around his chest about to jump off the bridge into the water. The crowd egged him on before he finally built up the courage to take the plunge. He swam away while pumping his fists and cheering himself on as much as the crowd. Along the riverside are stands of vendors selling all sorts of things, the most exciting being beautiful pashmina scarves. There a roasted chestnuts every 100 meters. The whole time we were walking along the riverside, we enjoyed music from a mysterious source. After walking most of the way down the riverside, we discovered what is was. Two electric violinists were playing in a square and plugged in to two large speakers. They were quite good! We stayed and listened for awhile.

We found a little green park at the top of the tallest hill across the river from downtown. From there we had an unbelievable view of the city, the bridge, and the river. We relaxed up there for some time, and realized we didn’t want to leave even for the free walking tour scheduled to leave at 3:30pm.  So we didn’t! Incredibly, from up there we could still hear the music of two electric violinists we had seen playing in the streets far below. Lying next to each other on the grass, looking over the river and city, talking and listening to beautiful music from at least a mile away, was one of the highlights of our time in Porto.

We also saw Livraria Lello and Majestic Café. These are famous because of J.K. Rowling. She went to the library regularly and Harry Potter it certainly resembles the Hogwarts interior / staircases. She also spent a bunch of time in Majestic Café, which is quite fancy and beautiful.

While in Porto, we figured it’s a good idea to taste some port. We took a walk over to Taylor’s port cellars.  They offer a tour there, but it costs €12 per person. Monisha still kinda wanted to go, Nolan was less into the idea, and wanted to get straight to the port tasting. We had heard online that the tour was a bit advertising-y, and he wasn’t really feeling it. We’ve been thinking a bit recently about how we make decisions as a couple.  Honestly, it’s pretty rare that we have strong differing opinions. Oftentimes we have the opposite problem, neither of us has a strong enough opinion to actually push for something. In this case, we decided to go check out the tasting area first and postponed our decision.  Once we got there, Monisha was happy to go straight to tasting, and read more about what the tour would have told us online.

Port opinions!

Nolan: The port was delicious. Surprisingly I enjoyed the white much better than the red. I didn’t even know that white port existed, but apparently it’s a special of Taylor’s.  It wasn’t too sweet, and since it’s port it was much stronger than usual white wine. It was served a bit chilled and somehow really hit the spot for the warm afternoon. I enjoyed drinking the red (a 10 year old Tawny), but wouldn’t have wanted to drink more than a glass.  I seem to remember that my dad had a fondness for nice port wine. I think this may have influenced my impressions (to the positive) before trying the drink. Overall, my first time drinking port was a lovely experience.

Monisha:  Bleghhh. I tried really hard to enjoy the first couple sips of the white port. But I gave up pretty quickly.  Within one sip of the red, I knew there was no chance. Wine has been my drink of choice for years, and I love sweet things, so I thought port would be delicious. It’s not my calling though. Normal wine it is!

Sushi.  We took advantage of our proximity to the ocean and sat down for a nice sushi dinner. The restaurant was a lot fancier than we realized, so instead of individual rolls we each ordered a tasting menu that included four different appetizers, 18 different sushi bites, and four pieces of salmon sashimi.  Not too bad for less than €20 each (though it did foil our expectations of spending very little money on food in Portugal). The sushi was delicious and varied, and the sashimi made Nolan close his eyes in ecstasy.

  

The next day we rented bikes from a café/bike shop called The Hungry Biker. Then we rode along the riverside to the beach! What a ride it was. Easily the most scenic bike ride either of us has ever been on. Like in Holland, we felt inspired to go on more bike trips in the future. Our route there was not perfect. At one point we rode directly on some trolley tracks and felt like we were in danger of death if a trolley came up behind us. Also, as cute as cobblestone streets are, they are not good biking terrain. We had rented the “city” bikes option, but felt that the “mountain” bikes would have been more appropriate, especially in the city.

Upon arrival, we went to a café that was recommended to us by our AirBnB host.  The highlight of the meal was an acai bowl. Delicious, sweet, and cold, which was great for a sunny day by the beach.                                                                                                    

Then, hours of lounging in the sand.  Nolan doesn’t really do beach lounging, so he spent most of his time building a couple small terraced sand castles, and a network of tunnels. Monisha challenged him to build a tunnel underneath her. Challenge accepted and completed!

  

On our way back to the center of Porto we biked through a park that was also recommended by our host. At first, we didn’t really understand why, it seemed like a kind of unexciting grassy area. Then we arrived at a little lake filled with all sorts of birds, and a huge koi! We sat by the lake, then explored further. The rest of the park was definitely worth visiting. We even saw a hen and a bunch of baby chicks!

We ate a number of Porto specialties (well, some are Porto specific, some are specialties of Portugal in general):

Franceshinas: this is the famous Porto ‘sandwich’. Though calling is a sandwich is a bit of a stretch. It’s inspired by the French Croque Monsieur / Croque Madam, which is bread with cheese, ham, and an egg ontop for a Croque Madam. Franceshinas start with that, but also have sausage and beef inside, are completely smothered in melted cheese, and are served in a special beer tomato sauce. We went to one of the so called top restaurant in Porto for a Franceshina dinner. It was certainly quite a creation. We did enjoy it. Though honestly, it was kind of a been there, eaten that kind of experience. We don’t feel like we’re missing it in my life and wouldn’t really want to have another. The simpler French version was better in our opinion.

Pastel de Nata: now here is a treat that lives up to the hype. DAMN these little pastries are good. They look a lot like the Chinese egg custard tartlets, but a little thicker. This means they have a higher custard to pastry ratio, and they’re also creamier and richer. They also have a very pleasant lemony flavor. We have to say, in our opinion they one up the egg custard tartlets.

Meat pastries: every bakery has a similar set of pastries, and we got several different kinds. They’re cheap and delicious. The best were the puff pastry ones with ham and cheese inside.

Bifanas: Portugese pork sandwiches. Simple as that. Seasoned pork in a bread roll. The first one we had was a desperate lunch at an unpleasant, overpriced, tourist trap restaurant. We went there only because Nolan was starving and we missed lunch hours, so nowhere we wanted to go was open. An embarrassing lunch, and needless to say the bifana was disappointing. I [M] insisted on getting one at a place known for their bifanas, so we had a 2€ bifana at a O Conga Restaurant. It was yummy, though honestly not something to write home about (yet here we are sort of writing home about it ;)  ).

  

Bacalhau: this is salted cod, and is very much a Portugal specialty. We did have one sort of bacalhau meat pie pastry. Maybe it was just this pastry in particular and not the Bacalhau itself, but although fine, it wasn’t a favorite of ours.

Chocolate pastry: this wasn’t quite a croissant, but similar. Only the chocolate inside was incredible. I [M] think Portugese chocolate is different and more delicious than…most. Maybe it was just this pastry. But boy did we enjoy it.