Ola on our last day in Porto!

 

Truly, I am going to miss this place! We have basically enjoyed just about everything we have done/eaten/tried, etc., with the exception of Robert hating to walk up some of these hills.  

The Majestic Cafe in daylight!

Not sure why I wanted this photo, but I did!

Church near the old market!

Fruit stall in temporary mercado

R loved the fish...

... a lot!

Photo of Atlantic bridge from Trolley

Park where the Atlantic meets the Douro

Me in trolley!

R's various olives for lunch!

Excellent white wine!

Vinho Verde!

Cheeses and crackers

Soft cheese that came warm; excellent!

This morning, for instance, the alarm got us up a 6 am, as I wanted to be at the closest laundry when they opened at 7.  In fact, the place that I was looking at looked to be only 8 minutes and 650 meters away.  Problem is that some of those meters were definitely downhill going in one direction, and absolutely uphill when going in the reserve direction.  However, be that as it may, we packed up clothes into backpacks and headed off about 6:45 am.  Here in Porto, the streets are not as well labeled as they were in Lisboa, so I wasn’t exactly sure of where to go, but when we got to the end of the street, I figured it was then time to pull out the address.  So, back UP the street we went, and voila! We had both actually walked past the laundry on our way down the street!  

We had to buzz ourselves actually in, but truly, I wish we had photos, because I think this is the nicest laundry we have ever run across anywhere in our travels!  (Realized now that I could have taken some on cell phones, as R did not bring the camera – sorry!)   At any rate, it was small but well-lit and beautifully decorated!  Lots of white and purple.  Comfortable benches to sit on, and instructions in both Portuguese and English.  Only four washers and two dryers, but they worked to perfection (although the wash went on … and on … and on …) and we had the place to ourselves the entire time. I looked like there would be someone there from about 9 am to 11 am, and then again in the evening, and if you wanted clothes to be ironed, you could pay by the piece!  What a deal!  

So, wash first (obviously) and then into the dryer.  I had thought with the blue jeans and R’s socks that it might take an hour or more for them to dry – especially because the dryer went first in one direction for a few minutes, and then stopped … and then started tumbling in the opposite direction.  We have never been able to figure out exactly why that happens, but this dryer worked to perfection.  We got there probably about 7:20-ish, and were back at the hotel by 9 am, which was great.  We dropped everything off and went back downstairs to a late hotel breakfast. (Which was actually not a bad thing, as when we left the first time to go to the laundry, there was a VERY large tour group gathering around the breakfast area.  At least we missed that, and now we have all clean clothes!)  (We really weren’t exactly desperate for clean clothes, but I was not able to find any laundries at all at our next stop, a small town in the east of Portugal called Vila Nova de Foz Coa.  So, figured that if we came in with clean clothes, we’d be fine until we return to Spain on Sunday.  (There is often method to my madness, even though R won’t usually admit it!)

After breakfast, we decided to head to the Bolhao Market, which wasn’t too far from our hotel. 

However, as we got closer, all we could see of the market was construction vehicles!  Turns out the market has been closed temporarily for maintenance on the building.  (Looked a bit like our old favorite hotel in Rome, the Gregoriana looked, when they had to meet EU standards … we would go back every time we were in Rome to check and see how it was coming, and honestly, we never thought it would ever reopen!  It did, eventually – and of course their prices went up at last three-fold, so we had to sigh and move on to a new favorite place!)  In this case, though, the market was temporarily relocated about two blocks to the east, so we headed there to check it out.  They have done an excellent job in putting up temporary storefronts and signage, and it seemed just like any other market – except that it was now indoors in the basement of a shopping mall!  We wandered through it for a bit and Robert looked closely at the huge containers of olives, which are definitely his favorites, but he managed to resist all temptation.

After this, we decided to head back to our hotel’s square, where we could pick up the old trolley again, this time taking it all the way – 22 to the 18 at University, to the 1 along the river, all the way down to where Porto meets the Atlantic Ocean!  Truly a lovely day, although I think it definitely got warmer than originally predicted.  Seemed to us that after the rain moved through last night, today was only supposed to get up into the mid-50’s, and I know it got warmer than that…at least it feels that way!

Trip took about 40 minutes and passes some quiet lovely scenery!  The tram also passes SOOOOO closely to parked cars, trucks and café tables set outside.  Seriously don’t know how the tram drivers manage, especially as they often have to honk repeatedly to get somebody out of their way! 

From the Atlantic Ocean, we took the trolley back down to the Ribiera area – the riverfront, where we spent some of yesterday.  We just wanted to sit down and have something to drink, so we picked the place on the waterfront where we stopped yesterday for my great whipped cream hot chocolate, as it seemed like a good place. We sat inside, because of smoking outside, and Robert ordered a glass ofVinhos Verde wine (literally Green Wine but actually meaning Early White Wine), and I had lemonade.  That is, I had lemonade until I tried Robert’s wine – it was amazing, so I ended up having a glass myself!  Then, after watching bread and cheese in various forms walk past us, we realized that while we weren’t really interested in a full meal, a bit of bread and cheese sounded good.  We had one order of cheese cubes that had been marinated in spicy olive oil (fabulous) and a second order of a soft Portuguese cheese that came warm with crackers. It was a toss-up which we liked better, and we didn’t leave anything but scraps behind us.  Yum!  

It being now after 3 pm, we decided to head back to the hotel for a rest.  As Robert said, once again we’d been on our feet since 6 am! (But we DO have clean clothes!!!  Yippee!!)  So, back to the #1 trolley, to take us to the #18 trolley, which finally brought us back to the University and the good old #22 back to our hotel!  (This time, though, we did stop so that I could get a Stracciatella gelato at our neighborhood gelato store…it was great!)  Finally, up and to the room, and R napping now. 

We’re thinking that across the plaza is a place called Churrasqueira A Brasa which has excellent reviews on Tripadvisor, and we may try tonight.  Our friends Chris and Brenda go to a Brazilian restaurant in Atlanta that they love, and I think is similar, but we’ve never tried it before! Then, hopefully a fairly early night as tomorrow we are loading the little car back up and this time heading to Vila Nova de Foz Coa in search of archaeological sites!

Lots of love,

m

xxx