Porto - Portugal

Arriving into Porto we crossed the main traffic bridge in town and got a stunning initial view of this picturesque city. It’s a quite a quant little city set on a riverbank with port distilleries dotting the waterline, with large bridges crossing the river, and a large monastery overhanging the bridge and city. My first impression of the city was a good one, and as soon as we dropped our bags we went for a wander and explored this UNESCO world heritage city. As with any UNESCO heritage city, the buildings were of historical relevance and are really beautiful. We finally stopped for dinner and I tried the local dish called a Francesisina. Im not sure if I got a dudd one, but it was pretty gross. Its Sandwich with sausage ham egg, with cheese and gravy on the outside. It had all the promises to be something I liked, but definitely missed the boat. 

The next day we had a pretty cruisy day…literally a cruisy day. We jumped on one of the local boats for an hours tour on the river. I thought it might be a bit of a let down but I actually really enjoyed it as you got a really great view of the city as well as all the little houses and port distilleries that dot the edges before making its way to the sea entrance then heading home. We were also lucky when one of the boatmen let me and Louise hang out down the back of the boat rather than sit up the front with the rest of the tourists fighting to take photos.

We then headed on home to do some planning for the next section of our travels as we are heading to San Sebastian in a few days time. But before we did our planning we needed some sustenance so Louise found a local sandwich place that was highly recommended in Lonely Planet. It was a pretty basic establishment that specialized in roast pork buns (they were as simple as they sound!), but although they were simple, we ate 7 rolls over the course of the next 12hrs, as they were so good! Needless to say we went back for dinner too. They were a really cheap eat, and perfect to cap the day off with a couple of beers.

Unfortunately on our last day in Porto we were let down a bit as our walking tour got cancelled at the last minute. So we had a lot of time to kill before the beginning of our train travel later that night. We were tempted to head back for more pork rolls, but Louise made the sensible choice of bypassing it. We headed to the Portuguese Photography Museum which I really enjoyed. I always love having a looking at photography exhibitions and they had some great works, including one that documented hunting traditions in Portugal. But as the day wound down we decided to grab some dinner before collecting our gear and heading to the train station. And what a dinner it was! This place was just up the road from our homestay/hostel and looked popular when we had walked past the night before. So we went and ordered a pretty basic order of steak, salad, chips, and salmon for Louise. Wow! This steak was the biggest steak I had ever seen let alone eaten, and it was perfect. Louise’s salmon was massive as well and cooked to perfection. We were worried that we had ordered the 2person portions instead of the 1 person portions,  so were guessing that our bill may have blown out, but when we got it, we were blown away – 26Euros for all that and 5 beers! Great way to load up before we were on our way. 

We collected our gears from our hostel and got a really warm goodbye from the family that run the place. Plenty of handshakes, and kisses from the old Portuguese lady who owned the place. We really enjoyed staying there, but we began the short journey to the train station to begin a bit 16hour mission to get to San Sebastian.