Loving Portugal....
Angel sculpture by the sea...
Saturday morning we headed for the modern art museum set inside a massive park Serralves. But when we arrived we found it closed so we went to a coffee shop for a little snack. I still haven’t figured out Portuguese. Its sounds to me like Polish/ Serbian/ Spanish spoken with an Italian accent, but I know that it’s a Romance language, and often things on paper look Spanish. I’m impressed with how few people in Porto actually speak English or Spanish so we’ve had to do a lot of pointing at things, which is always good fun. The waiter at this little coffee shop kept giving me thumbs up as I tried to say things and I gave him a thank you (only word we know in Portuguese)… “Obregado”. Anyway, after figuring out that our clocks were wrong (somewhere there was a time change we think) we finally made it in the park and went to the strange modern art museum that was only showing two films- one a Portuguese couple talking on a bed and the other two films (the exorcist and another religious film) played at the same time over each other. Since that was it (another exhibit was being put up) we headed out to the park which was lovely. We followed signs to the farm where we were able to look at the cows and sheep, then to the pond to quack at the ducks. On the way back the girls raced through the hedges of the rose garden and had a grand time.
the kids' treasures...
For the afternoon we wanted to spend more time downtown so we set course again to the parking garage, this time avoiding most of the steep roads we’d been on the day before. Lunch was more stuff topped with fried eggs- right on the water- and then we jumped on a boat to do a cruise of the harbor. The cruise was lovely (except for the rain squall) and allowed us to look at the massive crumbling infrastructure built into the cliffs. At one point the man at the bar who I bought a glass of port from (yum!) was attempting to have an intense conversation with me but I didn’t understand a word. He insisted that Sven try the port, even picking up the glass and lifting it to his lips and you could tell he was confused about who we are and where we were from. Dinner was more of the same- the waiter spoke no English, Spanish or French so he was able to find a friend to tell us about the ‘hot dogs’ and ‘water’. We basically ordered everything unusual on the menu and got pretty basic stuff (sandwich filled with three types of meat, topped with cheese and friend egg and accompanied with a soupy sauce and fried meat covered with fried egg, served with french fries). We giggled at the experience and we talked about how we love how Portugal hasn’t been overtaken by tourists, leaving everyone speaking English. Portugal, from what we see, has remained itself. Kind people in a thriving, yet crumbling infrastructure.
Statue for Henry the Navigator.
tiled houses...
Dinner on the water front...
Having a big butt walking contest.
Home at the hotel...
Enjoying the hotel hair nets :-)
On our boat trip...
huh?
"sorry, sir, not a clue what you are saying."
Last Day in Porto... enjoying the sea...
Sunday was our day off- Eilidh and I have both been coughing for a week and we are trying not to get Sven and Bella sick, so we decided to have a slow morning (journals) and then to drive to the beach. Driving along the ocean we marveled yet again at the houses (some huge, some tall, slender and slumped over), most covered with brightly-colored tiles and facing the sea. We spent a while at the beach but the wind was quite strong so we packed it in and headed to the aquarium across the road which was by far the best aquarium that we have ever seen. We must have spent two hours at least staring at the frogs, sea horses, cow fish, etc (from the play room off of the cafeteria kids can look at the shark tank! Oh, joy- a cappuccino in peace). Afterwards we headed to the Port Wine Museum but got distracted by a bird viewing station and never made it. Then, of course, we got hungry and decided to just eat some lunch. We picked a posh restaurant right on the beach where they only served one thing- salad with steak in a pepper sauce. Which we ate and enjoyed, thankfully.
Afterwards we took our two weeks of camel-smelling dirty clothes to a Laundromat and hung out for a couple of hours, which was actually quite nice and restful, then went to the downtown again for a light dinner on the waterfront. As we drove back to the hotel (before Sven and Eilidh decided to run off to the Harry Potter movie) we talked about how of all the places we’ve traveled on this trip there have been only two places we could imagine living: Nice, France and Porto, Portugal. There is something very homey about this place that just feels peaceful. And in some respects it reminds us both of home- a place in a beautiful location where things change faster than the town can always handle. But life moves on and the people and location makes the city amazing.
Massive sculpture near the aquarium- made of web (like a trawl net) so that it blows in the wind making a kinetic work of art. Fantastic!
hollowed out building on the beach.
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