Obrigada Porto

After a short flight from Paris we landed in Port and took a little train into the city. Surprise- our Air BnB was a room in someone's house (which from the description we did not gather) but it was a lovely young family and whew couldn't beat the location. We dropped our stuff and headed out into the rain. We thought Porto was a small tiny colorful town near the water and on the goolges it looked like the area near all the port wineries was green- nope it's way more roads than google said and populated by little shops and restaurants. Our plan was to bike the countryside but that now looked daunting so we roamed the cobbled streets and walked across the bridge for a 2 mile walk to the winery which actually was a better idea anyway.

 

Since port wine is made here it was only right to start off at a tasting. We went to the oldest one and since no one else was there we got our own private free tour. It got better, their best wine in decades was the 2011 and a bottle was over $100, we casually said that's the year we got married and they gave us a glass to taste for free (it really was the best one!) Then we settled down the by windows with a view and tried our tawny and ruby port flights while feeling lavish in our own private giant tasting room.

 

Then we strolled a bit and I drug us into the Livraria Lello Bookstore which is said to have inspired J.K. Rowling, she lived here a few years!! (If you don't know her shame on you - she wrote Harry Potter) I was slightly giddy.

The next day the sun was out and we walked through lots of small cobbled streets to discover beautiful full face tiled buildings and cute little shops that were old and hand carved details abound. All the people were so lovely and inviting. We had egg desserts with a little cinnamon sprinkled on them and beers (there aren't options you just say you want a beer and they hand you whatever is on their one tap)

 

 

Before we left we went to the Majestic Café which was elaborate and very classy (apparently it was all the rage and the place to be seen in it's early days) We ate the Francesinha which is a traditional porto dish - we describe it as a 3 types of meat sandwiched between bread topped with dripping cheese floating in gravy served with french fries (everything in Portugal seems to be served with french fries) You can be skeptical but our mouths were so happy!

 

Lastly we packed our backpacks and walked through Porto to catch our train to Lisbon.