We had a day off from cycling!!!! A whole day to explore Porto, and our knees kneeded -LOL – the break!
While we waited for our 9:30 tour with a local guide to start we were lucky enough to happen on a hardware store where John was relieved to find a bit that had gone missing from his bike. I blame the cobblestones. At any rate, problem solved.
Our guide’s recounting of the recent history of Porto (i.e. the explosion in tourism after RyanAir set up flights into Portugal in 2011, the terrible struggle Portugal had with its citizens’ heroin addictions, e.g. 1 percent of the population was addicted to heroin in the late nineties but they turned all of that around) was fascinating and inspiring.
There is a lot of construction going on in Porto right now, including in the beautiful Sao Bento train station. (Think 20,000 blue tiles lining the walls of the station.) We walked and walked, then finished the tour and went back to the apartment. The traffic and volume of tourists (were guilty) is insane.
After noon, we hit the streets again but this time on our own, to see the Livraria Lello (ranked as the third most unique book store in the world, but it’s also a madhouse with people…), Manteigarvia bakery for Portuguese custard tarts (for snacks the next day), and then we caught an hour of absolutely exquisite Fado, performed by a female and male singer, bass guitar and Portuguese 12 string guitar, savoured with a glass of port. I cannot even begin to tell you how very fine this music was.
Afterward we walked to the newly renovated market where you can buy a glass of wine, stroll the beautiful stands of sausages and cheeses, fruits, nuts, fish, and shop for dinner. So civilized.
Continuing on our “restaurants with ‘cod’ in the name theme” we ate a fabulous meal on the upper level of the market at Culto Bocalhao. I (Patti) had chick peas with cod, John had neck of cod with potatoes. All of it was sublime. We then rolled down the hill to the river, admired the full moon, found our apartment and went to bed. 16,800 steps on our day off from cycling. It was grand.
