To Portugal!

A three hour drive brought us to Porto, Portugal which would be our home for the next three nights. It was raining a bit as we drove in to Portugal but already we noticed a huge difference as we headed towards the sea- more green, more mountainous. Lovely. Our hotel was one of those massive high-rise things in the outskirts of the city but it did have a bunkbed room for the kids, which was a good touch. They immediately spread out their toys to all corners. Poor little kids have only had a backpack of the same toys the past few months. But they are well-worn and well-loved. (It’s a good lesson to all of us, though. Kids just don’t need a lot of toys!) After a bit of relaxing and unpacking we decided to head into the city center to get a feel for the city.

We had done no research on Porto (or Portugal in general) and didn’t know where to go so we looked at a hotel map of downtown and set the GPS to take us to what looked like a parking area in the center. When we were near the downtown the GPS told us in her posh British voice to, “Turn left in 50 meters.” Sven and I looked at each other in disbelief as we looked at the teeny cobblestone street leading down in between massive apartment buildings. But we took the left and found ourselves on the famous steep, windy (thankfully one-way) streets of Porto. After winding our way down the hill towards the ocean (and turning in our mirrors) we parked and walked around a bit. We stopped in to an absolutely gaudy Baroque church (St. Francis Monument Church)- most surfaces covered with gold, which was strangely at odds with the rough stone floor interspersed with burial chambers topped with wooden ‘doors’ with hand holds (that eerily moved with our steps). We went to the neighboring church museum to check out the historic church house and the catacombs in the basement. We idly wondered how much of the wealth (and rare woods) displayed in these buildings came from South America, but it is what it is and we enjoyed it. Plus, it was pouring rain so we were glad to be somewhere indoors.

Dinner was various fried things (again, we ate too early for the nicer restaurants and we didn’t walk around enough to find them) and then we took a nice walk through the winding wet streets. Porto is built into the cliff, stretched around the banks of a huge inlet of the Atlantic and the od town itself is surrounded by a massive stone wall that now seems to be integrated into the city (restaurants line the base of the wall, and there are even a few at the top). Buildings, many abandoned, show the remnants of affluence in their faded but brightly-colored tiles covering the outside. 200 years ago this place must have been fantastic. Purple tiled buildings are next to blue and yellow tiled ones, which are next to pink buildings. As we looked across the sheltered harbor of the Atlantic Ocean we saw that the ocean is lined with warehouses, many still functioning as port wine storage. Beautiful city.

Yikes! Narrow streets!

the catacombs

check out the purple tile!