Portugal Day 10: Porto

 

Our second walk around Porto, featuring a visit to Palacio Bolsa - the headquarters of Porto's Commercial Association, and a boat ride on the Douro river.

One more source of coffee and pasteis

We wake up late, and are out of the house around 10:30-10:45. Heading towards Sao Bento, but taking a different route than two days ago. Stopped on the way for coffee and breakfast of pasteis. Mine is a different take on pasteis de nata, with the same custard filling but a different tart. Tasty.

Pasteis. Sorry, I already took a bite.

We took a southward route to Sao Bento station - passing by the Batalha square, and then taking some side streets until we hit the street just south of Sao Bento, and walked it all the way down to the suare. There, we spent some time asking around the tourist booths about the walking tours. Did not get any satisfactory results, so walked to Rua das Flores and took it all the way to its end. This street is lined up with a lot of stores, so did some window shopping along the way.

Sao Bento Square.

Rua das Flores.

Past the end of Rua das Flores, we continued our descent towards Ribeira, passing by the Porto Wine Association building (walked in checked it out, used restrooms, left somewhat disappointed, because the promised access to see the wine testing labs did not materialize) and eventually reaching through a big square (Praca do Infante D. Enrique)  with a large palace on it - which turned out to be Palacio de Bolsa, a 19th century palace housing Porto's Commerce Association. The palace has tours - we stood in line watching as the number of available tickets (they had a running tally) for the nearest English-language tour dwindled - until we got extremely lucky and snatched the last tickets for it. The tour was at 1pm, we had another 30 minutes to kill before it.  Went down to Ribeira, seeing a couple museums on the way, but deciding against visiting them (gotta leave something for the next time we are in Porto), but buying tickets for a 2:30pm boat tour along the Douro River (the so called "6 bridge cruise").

Palacio de Bolsa.

Took a short walk along the embankment to find the location of our boat landing, then took one of the side streets (apparently a very old passage) back towards the Palacio.  

Ribeira.

Walked back up to the D. Enrique praca, and while crossing the street to get to the palace, discovered a tram - which I honestly thought was some sort of a monument/non-working unit - as it was just standing at a dead end all the time I was taking pictures of it. Later, I discovered it gone from the very spot - apparently, there is at least one - possibly two tram lines in Porto.

This turned out to be a working tram.

Another thing I found around the corner?

McDonalds in a historic building, overlooking Douro river.

We then proceeded with the tour.  We got to see the large hall on the ground floor of the palace (actually more like the second floor, as we had to climb the stairs to enter the palace). It was devoted to some sort of "friendship of the nations" theme, with seals of countries friendly to 19th century Portugal covering the ceiling.

Entry Hall as viewed from the upper floor.

Past the entry hall the tour moved upstairs through a set of grand stairs, where we proceeded to circumnavigate the palace room by room. As the building's "technical" function is to host the Porto's Commerce Association, the formal rooms of the palaces relate to this purpose. They have a portrait gallery of the Association's presidents, a courtroom - apparently the building was used for legal proceedings and they kept the room in its historic form,  several offices, a Board of Director's meeting room, a meeting room for the full association, and finally - the crown jewel of the palace, the so called Arabic room - a large hall fully covered in Arabic art-inspired decorations - very rich and beautiful.

Palacio da Bolsa: Arabic room.

Palacio da Bolsa: Arabic Room: Interior detail.

We left the tour with about an hour before our boat trip. We decided to sneak in a quick bite before the trip, so, as is customary in our prior trips, we went to check out McDonalds.  It is, as seen above, located in a great place, in a very nice building. The menu is a mix of staples, and some dishes we've not seen elsewhere.  It is expensive - about double what a similar item would cost at a regular tashkinhia.  We settled on sharing a Big Mac (4.40 Euro - one of the cheaper signature sandwiches), just to check the box.

Why does it have to be McDonalds?

After this, we still had time to go to Ribeira, walk past our boat landing, and find an ice cream place with little traffic, and sangria on tap. Ordered sangrias, and a weirdly flavored ice cream. Ice cream was good. Sangria - white, fizzy, served with a stick of cinnamon inside a glass was by far the worst I had in Portugal - cinnamon made it bitter to my taste. Olga did not mind as much. We took the sangria to go and went to stand in line to get on the boat. We came earlier than most, so when the boat came and the boarding started, we got to take some of the best seats on the boat on the top deck, in front.

Our boat, arriving.

The cruise took about 50 minutes. We first went in-land, passing by most of Porto's bridges. Got to make some nice pictures of the riverside neighborhoods on Porto side.

About to pass under a bridge.

Gustav Eifel Embankment, and the neighborhood above it.

Eventually, we turned back and went towards the mouth of the river. Immediately we went from no wind, and hot weather, to a really nice at the beginning (and eventually quite annoyingly cold) cool breeze. We passed back under all the same bridges, went by Ribeira (giving me a chance to take more good pictures of the neighborhoods above it), and went towards the last bridge on the western side of the city.

Just passed  under the D. Louis I bridge.

Ribeira and the Bishop's Palace.

I was able to also take some pictures of the Vila Nova de Gaia side - despite essentially shooting into the sun.

Vila Nova de Gaia.

By the time we reached the last bridge, we felt real chill, but as the boat turned around, the wind immediately subsided and we got warmer.

The tour took about 50 minutes, as advertised. We disembarked, and went up the Rua de Sao Joao and then Rua de Muzhinho da Silveira to reach Sao Bento again. From there, we decided to check out the City Hall - I read somewhere that one might be able to climb the tower, so we crossed over to the  Aloidos square, where we stopped by a clothing store to buy Olga a pair of pants (to be featured in tomorrow's report), had some pasteis do nata and needed rest, before heading out to check the city hall itself.

My orange juice came in a jar.

We were able to go inside the city hall, but only one side room was open to visitors, all other locations were cordoned off. So, we left, went around the city hall to discover another church (apparently, there is a apocryphal story about the bankers not wanting a church on their square, and making the City Hall tower tall enough to obscure any views of the church from the Aloidos  square.), after which we turned towards our house, and made slow but steady progress (between window shopping, and taking a fairly long detour on Santa Catherina street - adding about a kilometer total to our walk) towards our place.

Porto City Hall.

Back in the apartment, I prepared for our zoom business meeting (final presentation for a year  long sponsored project), we did the presentation, after which, we made some food, ate it and called it  a day.

View from our apartment.

Alcohol.  Well, that sangria was aweful.

Steps.  16,503 according to Google Fit. The watch was largely in agreement - don't remember the exact number.  Not bad, considering that we did not cover too much of a linear distance.

Tomorrow. A small group tour to Douro Valley.

Portugal Day 9: Braga

 

We took a train to Braga and back.

We wake up around 7am, having the benefit of going to back relatively early the night before.  We quickly pack and head for the Campanha train station, which is about 20 minutes away from our place. We want to make the 8:20 train to Braga - it runs a bit faster than other cheap trains. After buying the tickets (3.5 euros to Braga, another 3.5 back) and figuring out how the train cards work, we get to the tracks just in time for the train to arrive. We board and spend the next 50 minutes on the train.

Upon arrival to Braga, we get to the bus stop with a bit of a delay and miss the #2 bus to Bom Jesus. The next one is in 30 minutes. We spot a pasteleria on the train station square, head for it, get some coffees for Olga, juice for me, and obligatory pasteis de nata (flaky crust, gooey custard, I like it, Olga prefers her custards less runny).  After  breakfast, we head back to the bus station, but the bus is late, and it is starting to approach 10am, so we head to catch a cab, and pay 7 euros to get to the top of Bom Jesus.

This is somewhat unfortunate, as we wanted to take the stairs up. After some discussion, we find the stairs, go down all the way to where they start, and then walk back up.  It is not too bad - the first set of stairs involves flat stretches between the steps, while the last set - the pretty ones - well, we just scale them (-:

At the top, we go inside the church itself (it is smaller than other churches we've seen), visit a small exhibit talking about the funicular going to the top, and take a walk up, where we discover a series of trails and a park with a pond (you can rent a boat) located above Bom Jesus.  We then head back to the church level, get some pasteis de nata and coffee at the cafe, spend a few minutes trying to find the funicular (it is located very close to the stairs, but at a really awkward place that we kept on missing), and take the funicular back down (it's a nice fun ride) just in time to make it to the #2 bus headed back to town.

After about a 10 minute ride, the driver helpfully tells us that we have reached the center of Braga. We get off at a boulevard and head towards the old town, taking a small detour to visit a shopping center tucked away on the street.   As we exit it, the old town is in front of us. We go around the Torre de Menagem - one of Braga's castle towers left standing - unfortunately, it is closed and cannot be visited. We then hit the main tourist drag, and after a couple of blocks, find ourselves at the Se de Braga - Braga's main cathedral. We buy tickets, and sneak into the church just before it officially closes for visits. 

Inside the cathedral, a small chior of young people sing some modern renditions of vaguely Christian songs (I recognize Hallelujah from Leonard Cohen's repertoir) accompanied by a guitar. I get  a prime lesson of what church reverb sounds like for real.  The church is preparing for some sort of ceremony - eventually it starts looking like a wedding (a second one for us today, there was also one at Bom Jesus). Olga wants to stay and watch the whole thing, I eventually convince her to let the nice people have their wedding without us. We exit the church to find the groom and the bride just about to walk into the church.  

We then spend a scary 20 minutes trying to find a restaurant to sit down for dinner. We skip a couple of good candidates, then a few places we want have no table available. We circle around the old town, and eventually find a place that has tables and a menu we like. I get a legume soup, and cod served Braga-style (with lots of fried potatos). Olga gets the famous preco no prato - a beef steak served with rice, fries, salad and an egg - same dish she ordered in Fatima.  We get a liter of sangria - fizzy, and with a lot of frozen fruit (the sangria is pinkish in color, lighter than the usual red sangrias). The soup is good, and so are our dishes - when they are served (the service is a bit relaxed, but not too bad). The entire lunch is our most expensive meal to date: 40.20 euros (mostly thanks to me ordering the most expenisve dish on the menu, and us ordering a pitcher of sangria).

After dinner, we head towards Roman Terms. They are located on a hill outside of the old town, once we figure out the streets, we get there promptly. We are greeted by a young man who is bored, gives us teacher discount (I do show him my Cal Poly card as a proof), shows us the video explaining how the site was discovered in 1977 as they moved to the hill to build apartment complexes, and discusses with us the history of Braga. We head to the dig itself to find a really nice Roman relic, with clear signs of the Roman way of heating and cooling. The interesting part is that the baths - just as we saw at other places (Wroxeter comes to mind) undergone renovations with four different layouts discovered by the archeologists. We follow the map to see where different rooms were.

After leaving the Terms, we decide that we should call it a day in Braga and head home. On our way we pass the city gates, and have coffee and deserts at a pasteleria right outside. With 20 minutes 'till the next train, we head to the train station, find the train on the tracks already, get in, find sits, and head home.

We arrive at Campanha right before 6pm, head home, pass by Lidl, stock up on food there - get some meatballs, get home around 7pm, relax for an hour, after which i cook us a dinner of meatballs and tortilla da batata which we bought a long time ago and just did not have the time to cook, and boiled shrimp.  This completes the day.

Steps.  Surprisingly, Google fit shows over 24,000. 

Tomorrow. One more day of exploring Porto on foot.

Portugal Day 8: Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia

 

A day of walking around Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia.

Short itinerary:

Home -> Bolhao -> Sao Bento -> Se de Porto ->  Ribeira -> Vila Nova de Gaia -> Funicular -> D. Louis I Bridge (Ponte Louis I) -> Torre Dos Clerigos -> Casa Braganca (dinner) -> Bolhao -> home

Home. We wake up late, and get out of the house around 10:30.  We head for a small pasteleria about two blocks away from our place where we have a breakfast of coffee (Olga), and our first pasteis de nata for the day (flaky, really nice crust, sweet, somewhat dense filling).

Bolhao. From there, we follow Rua do Alegria for a block, turn west, and eventually reach the Bolhao main street (Rua de Santa Catarina) - much busier and with all the stores open. Olga spends some time at a clothing store while I find  melon-flavored gelato to start the day. We walk down the main drag for a couple of blocks, turn "west" (directions are not quite proper east-west/ north-south here) on Rua de Passos Manuel for a couple of blocks before heading south again on Rua de Sa da Bandeira.  Along the way we find a place called "Fabrica de Nata" and get some pasteis there - I chase mine with freshly squeezed orange juice. The pastel is good - similar to the one we ate less than an hour before. We do some window shopping along the way, but eventually reach Sao Bento.

Sao Bento.  We spend a few minutes inside the train station, looking at the azulejo murals, as tourists do, and taking pictures. Then we cross the square and head for the Se de Porto, which is now clearly visible ahead of us.

Se de Porto.  We reach the cathedral after a short climb, take some pictures, find the ticket office and buy tickets for both the cathedral and the (Arch)Bishop's residence - a large building sitting right next to the cathedral. The residence apparently has a 1pm - 2:30pm lunch break, our time is 12:30, so we head to the residence first. It is a five story building, where the main stairwell takes one to the fourth floor, which is open for touring - a pretty decently sized palace, with reception rooms, ceremonial rooms  and some nice utility rooms - like a dining room displaying a set of dining silverware to behold.

We move onto the Porto Cathedral itself, sneaking through a line of ticket buying tourists that suddenly increased in size, and tour the cathedral - as big as other ones we have seen on our trip, and also, set up as a monastery - with a pretty cloister, and all the other monastery-style rooms: the chapterhouse, etc... We walk the first and the second floors around the cloister, then head for the tower, which gives us our second Porto panorama for the day (the first is actually our apartment windows).

Ribeira.  From the Cathedral, we cross the square, take some additional panoramic shots of the neighborhoods around (the Cathedral is elevated, so we get nice views), and follow the stairs on the side of the Bishop's palace to head down to Ribeira. The descent is picturesque - below the palace we hit the back streets of Ribeira, which are narrow, vertical, and quite the sight.  Eventually we make it down to the level where restaurants appear, turn the corner and we are in Ribeira proper - the Douro river embankment.  We traverse it back and forth, looking up for a pasteleria to sit an drink a glass of something, but are only finding fancy-ish tourist-oriented restaurants in the middle of a busy lunchtime.  Lots of people around, some street musicians. As we head to Vila Nova de Gaia on the lower part of the D. Louis I bridge, one street musician breaks into a flamenco rendition of  Sultans of Swing - the street music quality is quite high.

Vila Nova de Gaia. We cross the bridge and head for the Vila Nova de Gaia embankment, which is just as touristy as Ribeira, but with fewer people and with a more relaxed vibe. We pass through the souvenir stalls and start looking for a place to sit, when I spot a Kopke port cellar labelled "Porto's oldest Port wine house"). I figure, we may as well. I pick a 2011  vintage white port (it is quite expensive, but hey...) and we are led upstairs to a small tasting room, where we sit by the window facing the river and Ribeira on the other side. The port is excellent, we spend some time just sitting and relaxing, before continuing on our way towards the end of the embankment and the funicular.  As it is getting towards the end of lunchtime (3pm-ish), we decide to get some lunch. We see the Vila Nova de Gaia Mercado, go inside to find a bunch of vendors there serving different kinds of dishes. We pick a vendor with some sandwiches, split a proscutto sandwich, chase is with some really nice sangrias (fizzy, with fruit), and the customary coffee for Olga and pasteis de nata for both of us - our third for the day.  

Funicular. After lunch and a quick stroll to the end of the embankment, we buy the funicular tickets and after standing in a short line for a few minutes, we board the funicular car and take a short ride back towards the bridge. I take a bunch of pictures of Ribeira, as we go up in elevation.  

Ponte Louis I. The funicular terminates at the top of the Louis I bridge. We take some pictures and cross the top of the bridge, making sure to stay away from the metro trains (there are three people one the bridge wearing uniforms whose role is to chase tourists away from the rails when the trains are passing through the bridge). We keep on taking pictures as we move along the bridge, eventually arriving back at the Porto side of  Douro, right next to Se de Porto. We head back towards Sao Bento, from where we take some back streets (as there is construction on some of the bigger ones) to reach Torre dos Clerigos.

Torre dos Clerigos. We reach Igreja dos Clerigos after some up and down  the hill walking along some back streets. From the side we reach it, there tower is not seen, but as we turn the corner, we see the ticket line. `It is around 4:45pm, we get the tickets around 5pm for a 5:30 tour, try to sneak in right away, are discovered and sent back. We go back to the church itself and spend a few minutes just sitting there, after which we make another effort to get to the tower and succeed. After some walking around the upper levels of the church building itself, we head towards the very narrow stairs to reach the top of the tower, where we walk around in a circle to take photos of the Porto neighborhoods, and then - the very top, where we do the same. Looking north-east, we can see our apartment complex high rise (consequently, when we return home, I find the Torre do Clerigos on the panorama we see from our window; we can also see the very top of one of the Se de Porto towers, the rest is hidden by some buildings on the hill on top of Sao Bento... we can see a bit of Sao Bento  too).   We spend a good half an hour at the top, before heading down.  Past the tower, we find another pastry shop, get some dessert, and decide that we want to finish the day with a dinner and a walk home.

Casa Braganca.  In a rare turn of events, we have a dinner place picked out already - just around the corner from Igreja dos Clerigos is a restaurant called Casa Braganca. We find it on our way to see the Tower, it is located right next to a Starbucks (heh). The menu advertises liver, which is why Olga picks it. From the pastry shop we turn around the corner, and take a tiny residential Rua de Tras back to the restaurant. The restaurant is very busy - a good sign, but has exactly one 2-person table when we approach so they seat us promptly, take our order and start bringing food and drink right away. I get their fish soup, and close the gestalt on octopus. Olga gets liver.  The sangrias are good (when are they not?). The food is served promptly, and both of us really like our dishes. The fish stew is nice and tastes like I think a fish stew should taste (based on my experience with fish stews in Soviet Union).  Olga really likes her livers, and my grilled octopus is great. Both plates are huge. We pay around 40 euros - the largest (to date) amount of money we spend on a single dinner - still about the price of one entree at a fancy US restaurant. 

Back to Bolhao.  After dinner we head home. I was planning on taking a different set of streets, but street closings and construction work essentially makes us all but retrace our steps. Once we reach Rua Santa Catarina, we walk back through the the crowds of people - it is closing on 7pm, but most stores are open. We sneak into a small mall on one side of the street at some point, Olga gets coffee at the grocery store inside, after which we turn the corner, and ascend towards our apartment, where we call it a day.

Alcohol. I am going to take a mulligan on this one.

Steps. 21,338 according to google fit. The watch agreed.

Tomorrow. Train trip to Braga and ascending Bom Jesus.

Portugal Day 7: We made it to Porto!

 

Well, we made it to Porto, where we will be based for the next five days.

Morning: we wake up relatively early to finish packing bags and check out. We are out of the Obidos Airbnb at 10am sharp. We take a short drive up to the Continente supermarket, where Olga gets coffee, and I get to a cup of tea and try a Queque, yet another pastry I like.  We select our plan for the day: try Mira de Aire caves, and Pombal Castle. It seems that time-wise we should be able to make it to Porto by 5pm on this itinerary.  We then get gas in what appears to be Portugal's busiest gas station, succeed in solving the gasoleo (diesel) vs. gasolina (gasoline) dilemma, and take the toll-free road to Mira De Aire.

The road is nice - we retrace the steps we took to get to Alcobaca, then continue on, hugging a hill/mountain range until we arrive to Mira de Aire, which turns out to be a bigger place (a small town) than we expected (I expected a village).  The caves are right in the middle of the town, which hugs a side of a mountain range.  We park, avoiding contact with yet another suspicious dude hanging out at the parking lot (he may have been chased away later, as we've not seen him after our cave tour), go in a buy tickets.

Early Afternoon: Mira de Aire Caves.  Tickets are 7.50 per person. We assemble at the entrance, where they let a group of about 30 people in at the same time. Unlike the Grutas do Medeo (which are about 10-12 minutes to the north), Grutas do Mire de Aires have a guided tour narrated in Portuguese. Mira de Aire caves are much bigger than Grutas do Medeo - there are at least three levels in which the corridors go on for a few km. The walkable tour is smaller, but still is significantly longer than at Grutas do Medeo.  The cave is large, with a lot of formations - mostly on the walls and the ceiling, and with some breathtaking views as it opens into several pits (into which we descend), and long hallways. There is an underground river there, and a lot of water. We eventually migrate to the back of the tour group, which allows me to take a lot of pictures with no people in them.

This formation is called "The Organ"

The end of the tour is an elevator ride to the surface, we emerge about 300 meters away from the entry, walk back, Olga gets a coffee, I punch in coordinates for Pombal Castle and we are on our way.

Mid-Afternoon: Pombal Castle. It takes us about an hour to get to Pombal: on our way we drive by Grutas do Medeo and into Fatima, where we catch A1, and take the toll road - it is faster this way and we want to have about an hour at the castle. We arrive at the Pombal castle around 2:45pm and park at the empty castle parking lot at the top of the hill. We walk around the hill, eventually finding the stairs to the castle (we took a somewhat scenic route here). When we arrive at the castle gate, it is open (apparently it works on Sundays from 2pm), and pretty empty, with just one other  person finishing their tour.

Pombal Castle

Pombal castle is pretty small. It was built as part of  a castle system establishing a defensive perimeter around Coimbra in late 11th century, and kept on being maintained through the later periods of Reconquista. It was primarily used by the Templar Order at the outset, switching to be the residence of the Lord Mayor of Pombal in the 14th century, when apparently the castle saw most of its major renovations. Interesting history, albeit no mentions to significant warfare around it.

The Castle Keep

Inside the castle is a small modern information center with a bored staff person - we stopped to say hello, she gave us an English language information booklet. The visit is free. We get to walk to courtyard of the empty castle, which contains a set of two cisterns in the middle, some broken down buildings at the gates with some nice preserved arches, and a keep tower at the highest point. We walk the perimeter of the castle - the space between the keep and the far wall is a narrow walkway that looks most medieval. Walls have passages through them, although only one small one is truly accessible. There is a unfortunate ugly rusty structure leading to the entry inside the keep at around 3d story level, the internal stairwell, also added during the reopening of the castle, takes us to the top where we get wonderful views of both the castle, and the town of Pombal and the area around it.  

The castle courtyard starts filling with other visitors - by the time we are get down from the keep, and make our way back to the gate, there are four or five groups in the castle. I make efforts to avoid capturing humans in my photography. 

Pombal Castle. We were there.

Eventually, we leave the castle proper, and walk around its inner walls. The castle also has a set of outer walls which are well preserved on our side, we spend some time walking around them and taking pictures of the castle - mostly into the sun, unfortunately.

It is 3:37 when we get to the car.  I punch in the address in Porto and we realize that we are about 15 mins late (I thought the drive is one hour, it is actually more like 1 hour 35 mins). We let our hostess know, decide to forego another coffee at the Continente supermarket at the bottom of the castle hill, and leave Pombal for Porto.

Late Afternoon: Porto check-in. Our drive to Porto  goes smooth. We take the toll road (mostly A1), and incur our biggest charge to date - around 10 euro to drive from Pombal to the outskirts of Porto. Quite expensive. Fortunately, we only have one, maybe two driving days left on the trip, so our costs from now on are limited.  We arrive at our address in Porto - a high rise building near the 24th of August metro station - at 5:15. There is an issue with parking on the street while waiting for our hostess to come down from the apartment, as a result, I let Olga out, and go around the block twice in large circles. Eventually, we park on the street, walk up to the apartment (where we have a slight disagreement with one of the elevators). Our hostess then helps us find the designated parking spot in the garage - this is an non-trivial affair, as it requires using a resident plastic card at two places, one of which is very non-obvious. With her help we eventually park at the right stall, haul our stuff upstairs and move in.

Evening:  Around 7pm we go for a walk. Our place is located right next to the August 24th metro station, which also features a large Continente supermarket (a win, as we discovered - with prices close to those at Lidl, but definitely - a much bigger selection of various items).  We walk past it and go roughly south-west towards the center of Porto. My original intent is to reach one of Porto's landmarks. As we walk we are discussing dinner plans - our choice is cook at home with stuff we brought from Obidos plus whatever we buy at the grocery store, or grab a bite at one of the restaurants.

Bolhao is apparently a shopping district.

Despite this being late Sunday evening, plenty of restaurants are open. Eventually, on our way to the center we cross the Bolhao pedestrian street with almost all the stores open and hundreds of people walking it. We change our plans and head north for a couple of long blocks, picking up a coffee for Olga in one of a few open cafes, and drinking it in front of a picturesque church covered in azulejos.

This church is even more beautiful in person.

Urban Sunset.

 We then commit to dining out, double back to the square we found earlier covered in restaurants, and choose a place we came by earlier called Poveiros which advertised both bifanas (Olga got one on a plate with olives and fries) and francescinhas - a dish I was not aware of until Olga told me that it was a local thing. I ordered it. 

Franciscinha in all its glory

The food was good and plentiful. The francescinha reminded me a lot of a Kentucky Hot Brown. Francescinha I had consisted of layers of at least three types of meet (I saw a steak, mortadella, and linguica), bread, a fried egg (really good on this dish) and melted cheese, all covered in some tasty red sauce that went really well with the fries I also got with my order.  The sangrias were red, fizzy, and had red currants in them!  The full meal cost us an exasperating 21.60 - coming in just a tad under our current record of 22 euros spent at the taverna in Nazare.  No complaints here.

After dinner, we head back, drop by Continente to buy some drinks, head home and crash hard.

Oh, and we have a hammock in our apartment, and it works.  

Steps. 12,233 according to Google Fit. Consistent, for a change with my watch, which was at around 12,680 as we were approaching our building around 9pm.

Alcohol. 

Continente's fizzy red sangria. Finlly found the fizzy one already prepared. Comes in a soda bottle, but is really good - especially with ice.

Don Pablo white sangria. I had it both neat and with some Sumol Ananas zero sugar. Both variants work well, although it would be better if the soda it is mixed in does not have strong flavors.

We also finally opened a bottle of red wine, but I'll cover it tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Walk around Porto, see what we discover.

Portugal Day 6: did not go as planned

 

Well, this most certainly changed our plans... Our car was vandalized on a parking lot in Leiria in the most petty of possible ways.

Missing: driver side molding for driver and rear passenger doors for Renault Kadjar.

That's our car in the parking lot of a shopping mall/city market in Leiria. We got there around 1pm, went to check out the weekly market at the stadium nearby, then from there went to see the castle, went down to the central part of town, walked for a bit before returning to the car shortly after 4pm. 

The parking lot was occupied by the gang running the same racket as in the Sitio of Nazarre yesterday, and we did (argh) give a guy his euro, but apparently the rental car sticker on the back (the stupidest thing a rental car company can do is paint a target on the car) was sufficiently attractive that of the hundreds of cars on that lot, only ours lost external parts.  I spent some time yelling in vain at the last remaining guy from the gang on the parking lot, he of course pretended he had no idea who done it. We called police, went up to the police station (which is in a really showy historic building directly below the castle - we passed it on our way out of the castle) and had an officer on duty produce a report. The entire proceeding made it clear that this report is for us to show to the rental car company, and that no one is going to bother looking for anything, despite the fact that (a) one camera pointing at the parking lot would have recorded the entire proceeding (or deterred this from happening), and (b) it is really not that hard  to figure out whodoneit, as I am assuming the gang that operates in that lot consists of people known to the police - or at least, if anyone with any skill was running the police department, it would. The officer on duty suggested that we got marked for being tourists (duh) and someone was following us out of the parking lot to signal back when we were no longer in danger of returning to the car quickly (makes sense). 

The part that makes it so petty and ridiculous is that we looked up the prices on the parts they took - they go for $50 - $80 from third parties (Renault strangely does not have a good parts catalog on-line in which I could look up the exact part - even after we discovered the official name - but my guess is - no more than double for official part).  Installation should be pretty straightforward - pull the car up, screw in the molding - so, if  I were doing it to my car - $150 parts + 1 hour labor (charitable - that actual installation is probably more like 15-20 minutes), so somewhere around $250-300 in a shop.  

The officer said that this is the first time they had a report like this (a typical steal is a catalytic converter). This suggests that there is a channel for off-loading car parts, and there is an organized effort to jack whatever parts stick out.  It's just that doing so in a VERY BUSY parking lot in the middle of the day in a tourist city is kind of ridiculous.  

Yep, we are tourists, we don't quite blend, we don't speak Portuguese, etc. etc... But expecting a parking lot in the middle of a tourist city to be reasonably safe is NOT unreasonable, even if one walks in a "punch me I am a tourist" t-shirt.

So yeah...  We did get to enjoy the day before  we learned this happened, but I don't have the mental energy to go through that at the moment  - will do a separate post on this day later.

We still need to deal with reporting it (took about an hour and seven different phones to get to a point where someone took a report, promised to call us back and did not), and then filing an insurance claim with our broker...

Steps:  17162.

Tomorrow:  moving to Porto. Plans depend on whether anyone from the rental car company bothers to call us back.

Portugal Trip Day 5: Checkmark Nazarre!

 

We made it to the beach! But first.... 

... we went to see another monastery.

Woke up around 9am, left house around 10, took a toll-free drive to Alcobaca, a small town whose main attraction is a large monastery, originally built in the 12th century.  Enjoyed yet another drive along Portugal's rural roads - any time one has a few minutes to kill, these drives are more fun than those along the major highways. The only downside is these roads being two-lane streets (one lane each way) are excellent when there are no cars tailgating you. When there is one though, like it was the last 5 km before Alcobaca, it's a bit stressful.

Alcobaca monastery is located in the heart of town, surrounded by small streets that clearly were there in medieval times. The parking lot is small for the attraction (a similarly sized Batalha monastery had a signficantly bigger parking lot), it took us a bit of waiting to see someone leave and free up a space for us.  We first went to get coffee in one of about seven or eight bakeries lining up the street in front of the monastery, then made our way to the monastery church to catch a bit of a wedding going on.  We left the church and went to buy the tickets to the monastery proper, and proceeded with the tour.

The Alcobaca monastery is quite different from Batalha. The latter is an example of an exquisite gothic style - lots of ornamentation and details on every single accessory: walls, ceilings, columns, etc... At Alcobaca, the style is much more somber - straight lines, simple arches, and very little ornamentations - the most ornamented things we saw were stylized gutter drains.  

The monastery is structured around two cloisters: one, the main one is well-maintained, and is beautiful. We got to walk around it, walk in it, and also walk around it on the second floor of the monastery. There is even a third-story/roof terrace above this cloister that we climbed.

The second cloister is significantly more run-down. It serves as a home to a gang of about five cats - mostly black but with some Siamese present as well, the maze is overgrown with vegetation, and the cloister walkways are used as storage. We only can access the second cloister, called the Cardinal's Cloister from a balcony above, it is not part of the tour.

On the other hand, pretty much everything else (except for a more modern wing of the monastery on the other side of the church) was part of the tour.  There is a large refectory. Next to it is a very impressive kitchen with a huge fireplace and impressive chimneys covered in azulejos. Next to the kitchen is  room that served many purposes, ending up as a wine cellar. We also could access the living quarters (a very large empty room with a lot of columns) on the second floor, from which the Cardinal's Cloister was visible. There is a nice passage from that room to the second-floor walkway around the main cloister, and there is a cute "observation point" one can climb to tower above the kitchen and observe it from above.  

As mentioned above, we could also climb even higher and see the cloister and the outside of the church from a third-story perspective.  

The monk's quarters on the second floor used to have direct access to the church's transept. This feature is now disabled, but replaced with a big window allowing those in the living quarters room see the church. We caught up with the aftermath of the wedding ceremony (everyone was congratulating the groom and hugging the bride) while there, and then again - when we went to the 3d floor terrace, we caught the photographers taking pictures of the newlyweds in the main cloister.

We then went down again, took additional pictures, and finished the tour by walking through several more rooms.  

Outside, we got an extra hour and a half of parking and went for a walk around the narrow streets surrounding the monastery.  The streets have character, although they also are full of old dilapidated buildings. 

We returned back to  the main plaza, and decided (it was around 1pm at the time) to catch lunch. Picked a restaurant almost at random, ordered two bifanas and calimari, plus coffee for Olga and two glasses of sangria. The service was a bit on the slow side, but we enjoyed our seating - right in front of the monastery. Bifanas were ok - I think the one I had in Peniche is better, this one was still tasty, just not as much sauce on it. The calimari were meh, sangria was red and fizzy and refreshing. 

After lunch, we walked a bit more around town, found a vegetable store, bought some apples, returned back to the monastery plaza and had some pastries - trying to expand our understanding of Portuguese baking beyond pasteis de nata - in what appears to have been the most expensive bakery in the entire country, where individual items cost (OMG) 2.40 and 2.90 euros. We got three pastries, one of which, called Pudim de Sao Bernardo was local version of flan pudding and pretty good, while the other two small pastries Olga selected were different versions of mixing egg yolk and sugar, and were kind of on the sweeter side. 

For the record, we spent 13 euro on lunch, and another 11 (OMG!) on coffee/tea and pastries.

From there, we went back to the car and headed for Nazarre, which was an easy 20 minute drive away. At Nazarre, I decided to take us to the Sitio - the uptown, so to say - primarily because it seemed more accessible by car than the neighborhood adjacent to Nazarre's famous beach.  When looking for places to rent on Airbnb, we spent a lot of time examining locations of various Sitio of Nazarre properties before settling for our place in Obidos. From this examination I had a decent idea of where I'd be able to find some parking. It took us a bit of a drive around the Sitio, and some creative double-backing before we got to the place I wanted us to get to - a small parking lot a little bit out of the way, "protected" by two polite, but frazzled gentlemen, running the world's famous "I will NOT damage your car if you part with some cash" racket.  Since 1 euro is a small price to pay for keeping a rental car unscratched, and since it is also a reasonable price for five hour of parking, we did not feel too bad falling for this racket - it certainly beats another 30 minutes or driving the narrow and often incomprehensible streets of the Sitio looking for an empty space.

We spent some time walking around the Sitio - getting to the cliff-side overlooking Nazarre and the beach first, then moving to the main square, walking slowly through all the souvenir stalls (not really being compelled to buy anything despite the presence of some Nazarre-specific merchandise), visiting the church, and a small exhibit of miniatures a local man was making of Jesus carrying the Cross to the Calvary Mount.  We then returned to the cliffside, found the stairs leading down, and descended to the Nazarre proper. There, we navigated the narrow streets to head towards the beach.  

One thing that was very not apparent is just how much of a tourist place this is. All the videos of Nazarre we have seen, show it in March or some other winter/spring month, when apparently, there are no crowds.  In August, it is apparently high season. Sitio is crowded. The beach is crowded. The boardwalk - stretching at least a couple kilometers is also crowded. Lots of people, 90% of them are Portuguese - this is definitely a local vacation spot much more so than it is an international tourist destination. We heard Russian spoken exactly once - a family walking out of the same parking lot in Sitio we parked in (they somehow "made" Olga, who was asking "how much" the parking fee was of the friendly frazzled would-be-racketeer - and told her in Russian that the parking was technically free, before giving the man his euro).  We heard some Polish from a group of people who also spoke Portuguese - which confused the heck out of me (we were in one of the boardwalk stores) - I heard both Slavic words and Portuguese words spoken with the same inflection - figured out what was going on, when the woman called the man "Yatzek".  We heard some English - mostly from Americans. Some French too, but unlike many other places, this was definitely a Portuguese vacation spot.

We walked along the boardwalk in front of a pretty crowded beach for what I think is about a kilometer. After that, we took our shoes off and went towards the water. The were pretty strong waves there and I got a bit wet trying to only step  into the water at ankle level, but catching a sudden wave.  We then walked a bit more - with the sand actually hurting my soles for some reason (usually i can walk on sand with little trouble). At some point, we stopped, dropped our stuff on the sand, pulled out a blanket, and lied down for a good part of an hour, just doing what Olga called "Checkmark Nazarre!"

After that, we packed up, headed back to the boardwalk and started looking for a place to have a glass of sangria. Among the various bakeries and restaurants lining up the boardwalk, I spotted a couple of places that seemed to have been populated by locals who were sitting down with glasses of beer and eating heaps of various seafood.  Eventually we found one such place with empty tables. I confirmed with one of the men behind the counter (there were about five busy looking men in their 50s behind the counter) that they had sangria, after which we got a glass for Olga, a glass of beer for me (this is a beer place, do as the locals do). To top it we ordered a plate of caracois, small snails cooked in an aromatic broth, that every person in the establishment seemed to have been enjoying, and - finally! - octopus salad, which turned out to be sliced octopus served with olive oil, vinegar, onion and olives - pretty much the same style (sans olives) in which we serve herring.   

The caracois came with a toothpick to be used to pluck the edible part of each snail from the shell. They are tiny, there are easily a couple hundred of them in our plate, so it took us a good part of an hour to go through all of them. Olga kept pointing out how un-economical this is - we were occupying a table for much longer than we really needed to.  Olga's sangria was red, fizzy, and refreshing - similar to the one I had in Berlengas.  The beer, Super Bock, went down much better with the snails than it did when I tried it at home.  Still, a pretty light easy-drinking beer, but good for the specific occasion.  The entire meal cost us a total of 22 euro - the most we spent at a restaurant in Portugal to date on this trip.

After the meal, we walked the boardwalk all the way to the Sitio cliff, and took the local funicular ("ascendo") up to Sitio. Had to wear masks for it (fortunately, I had mine on me), but otherwise, a nice experience. I took a video of the entire ascent.

In Sitio, we went to the car, stopping by a bakery for a quick coffee. The car was fine, the men "guarding" the parking lot having gone elsewhere - this being well past 7pm. We hopped into the car, drove down the hill, stopped by Aldi to get a few food items, drove straight home, set up a small sangria + tapas evening meal, and called it a day.

Alcohol.  

Continente brand white sangria. This essentially is the lowest common denominator of all sangrias - a cheap (1.75 euros) store brand mass-produced sangria. We drank it flat, out of the fridge, without any accoutrements.  Still good and refreshing, went well with our improvised meal of bread, cheese, sausage and octopus. B. 

Steps. Watch says 19030. Google fit says 17,202.  Either way, a pretty decent day. Some of those steps was the descent on from the Sitio to Nazarre - a nice pleasant walk, but still tasking on feet.

Tomorrow.  The original thought was to go to Tomar. But we decided to mix it up a bit. There is an antiques market at Marinha Grande - which is close to Leiria. So the plan is to hit it in the morning. Then, if we feel like doing a big circuit - another market in Ourem, and Knights Templar in Tomar. On the other hand - if we are feeling like taking a bit of a break - it will be Leiria and its castle, and then, just enjoying the rest of the day and taking it easier. It will be our last full day. On Sunday, we are heading to Porto.

 

Trip to Portugal Day 4: Batalha, Grutas do Moedo, Fatima

 

We called an audible today, but it worked out well.

Woke up really late - left the house only around 10;30 am. Yesterday turned out to be a really tiring day, so we got totally decomposed in the evening and slept through early morning.  The original plan called for going to Batalha Monastery first, then a trip to Leiria to see the castle, and a visit to Fatima, which we figured would be a quick one - just to take a look at the shrine and the whole pilgrimage thing.  But... on our way to Batalha Olga discovered the caves (Grutas do Moeda), located right outside Fatima, and we decided to go there instead of Leiria.  Was a good call as it turned out.

We arrived to Batalha around 11:30, after our first experience driving toll roads (a stretch of A8) followed by a 15 km drive on a small country road - which was again a very pleasant experience. Had no trouble parking - there is a large parking lot behind the monastery, it appeared to be free - at least I could not find where to park (an no one gave us a ticket).  Olga had coffee and we bought two local pastries at the first bakery off the parking lot. The pastries turned out to be really sweet and not as good as our favorite pasteis de nata. One of the pastries was called "Pasteis de Batalha". Apparently, every town has their tart recepie...

After that, we walked to the monastery, and circumnavigated it until we found an entrance. The Batalha monastery is a huge building, comparable in size with Westminster Abbey or Canterbury Cathedral. The church itself (free to visit) is grand.  We stood in a small line and bought tickets and then went around the paid parts of the monastery, starting with a small space in which the tombs of the king and the queen who commissioned the monastery in the 14th century, and their children lay. The tomb ornaments are quite exquisite.

Next, we visited the original cloister - a perfectly maintained shrub maze in the middle (you cannot walk it though),  great gothic architecture, and the views of the church walls. The sun decided to show up in the middle of our visit, allowing me to take some nice pictures. There were quite a few people in the church, which is free to view. The paid areas had only a handful of people in them. I was able to "lay in wait" and get some shots of the architecture with no humans in them.

We visited the exhibit of "gifts honoring the unknown soldiers" in the former refectory - lots of military paraphernalia - some, like the medals - straightforward, other - like a statue made out of an artillery shell - unexpected. The room also doubles as a small souvenir shop.  After that we visited the Chapter house on the other side of the cloister and learned why there were gifts honoring the unknown soldiers there - the Chapter houses tombs of two unknown soldiers with modern honor guard (complete with M-16s) standing watch.  It also has a beautiful stained glass rendering of various defining moments in the life of Jesus.  

The second cloister of the monastery - much more somber, devoid of gothic detail, and built 100 years later was deserted and the yard itself was closed for renovations - we simply walked the hallways to walk out of the monastery.

The last stop - the "unfnished chapels" - tucked behind the nave of the main church and accessed from outside - it seems like "unfinished" was the intent. There is no ceiling, but there are multiple, intricately ornamented chapels along the circumference of the space, housing the tombs of various royals, some - unmarked, making us quip about the "tombs of unknown kings".  

We then went outside, and after a brief stopover at a souvenir shop along the way, found the facade of the monastery/church (we did not go this far in our original approach), and spent about 10 minutes there waiting for a few other picture takers to clear the plaza in front of it, so that we could take a "perfect shot".

Overall, Batalha is a beautiful monastery - absolutely stunning architecture, very well-preserved - probably the most ornate gothic cathedral/church/etc... I have ever visited. Huge - same as the largest cathedrals in the UK we visited - bigger than anything we saw in Lisbon in 2017.

We circled back to our car through a few streets adjacent to the monastery, making on our way the final decision to forego Leiria, and check out the caves. 

Grutas do Moeda (Coin Cave), found in the 20th century by "two hunters chasing a fox" are found around 3-4 km from Fatima, inside a small forest, less than a kilometer from some apartment complexes located in a place called Sao Mamede (St. Mohammed? what's up with that?).  We were in luck - all the reviews indicate that the caves were accessed via a guided tour, but either they got lazy, or decided that QR-based technology is cheaper than human guides, and now, the system works as follows: every 2 minutes a new group of people is let into the caves to explore on their own, with the said QR codes found in a few places to lead to various "pages" of the audio guide.   It is a huge upgrade over having to visit the narrow passages of the cave in a group of even 10 people (and I suspect it would have been more like 20-30 at a time).

And the cave is well-worth it. The walkway is artificial - they excavated the rock around the original cave formations so that the formations are visible, but are not disturbed. As we walk we see hundreds of beautiful rock formations. There is an underground stream and a few undergrounds pools with crystal clear water - so clear in fact that in one place Olga thought that the pool went dry.  

The cave itself is not very large - it's about a 350 m walk that drops around 45 meters below ground at one point and then slowly walks us back. There is a part of the cave - with a built-in walkway that seems to go further below that we did not visit, but what we saw was impressive enough already. We've done caves in the US (including - for me - a visit to the only part of the Mammoth Caves in Kentucky that has formations),  Iceland, and Korea. When it comes to formations, this was probably the most beautiful cave we ever visited.

After the visit to the caves, we went to see the small museum which contained samples of minerals and fossils from around Portugal and the world, and visited the café where we got to sample some sweet bread (Pao Dos Santos - given traditionally to kids on All Saints Day), and local sweet wine, which has interesting flavor for those people (like I) who like dessert wines, and have zero attraction for those people (like Olga) who do not like dessert wines.

From the caves, it's a short drive to Fatima. We wanted to get near the Sanctuary and (a) take a look, and (b) get food. It was starting to get late afternoon-ish, the time when food in Portugal is hard to come by.  I punched in a wrong location in Fatima and we had to double-back, stopping by a "Fatima Shop" on the way (a big and empty department store, run like all other such department stores by Chinese people curiously enough), then corrected our course and parked on a small side street a few hundred meters away from the Fatima Sanctuary.  

While I checked what we would be looking at beforehand, Olga was not expecting an empty concrete plaza the size of 10 or so football fields, with a towering cathedral on one end, and a towering crucifix on the other end.  There were some crowds clumping in a few places on the plaza, we went to check them and discovered (a) the focal point of the pilgrimage - with a path leading to it that people walked on their knees (not too many, but every 2-3 minutes or so someone would walk by) and (b) a line to light the candles, which are then apparently burned in a big pyre to let others' candles be lit as well. That line, even for a fairly empty plaza like today was pretty long - I estimated about a two hour wait based on the speed with which people moved. Everyone in the line had multiple candles, sized anywhere from your regular ones, to human-sized ones that they used like staves.  We got curious where they got the candles, but our curiosity was answered a bit later.

We then walked up the steps to the cathedral itself, spend some time visiting it in between two services, and left the Sanctuary plaza. Outside - tens of souvenir shops selling regular souvenirs, religious paraphernalia, and, well, candles. Candles, everywhere, in each size.  We walked around the part of Fatima immediately adjacent to the sanctuary, and consisting of many large massive old-style hotels, and some apartment complexes looking for food. All the actual restaurants we passed on our way were closed promising to reopen around 7. It was about 5pm, we needed to leave Fatima before 7 so that I could have a zoom meeting with colleagues at 8pm, so for a while it looked like a later dinner in the house. Fortunately, though, right as we lost all hope (pun somewhat intended, given the location we were visiting), we found an open family-style restaurant (checkered table cloths, and friendly owner and all) tucked in the basement of one of the buildings right across from where we parked the car. 

I tried to order octopus, but apparently they ran out, so instead I ordered the most unusual-to-me looking dish - a pork stew with clams served on a bed of fried potatoes.  Olga ordered a beef "bitoque" (entrecote) served with a fried egg on top, french fries, rice and salad. We also got some bread, olives and a liter of white sangria, which came flat, with about half of a can of canned fruit in it, but was really refreshing (see my notes from yesterday on how it is hard to destroy a sangria).

We both found our food tasty. I could have used more sauce in the pork stew - what sauce I had was excellent, flavoring both the pork, the potatoes and the clams. The dish was large - Olga commented on just how much meat I got - very "family-style". Olga's meat for "perfectly seasoned" according to her, and she liked sides as well - the egg was a great touch.  All in all it cost us 30 euro. The proprietor thought we were Polish (he apparently has some Polish roots), but then a real Polish family (who spoke very little English) came in (we were first customers at the restaurant, but once we sat in, another four or five groups showed up almost immediately making the place go from deserted to real busy in five minutes), and when I was paying the proprietor, forgetting that I did not speak Portuguese conveyed to me that he had trouble understanding what they wanted.

After the meal was over, we got into the car, I punched in our home address, and we drove "straight" home. "Straight" in quotes ,because the fastest route was to go north all the way to Leiria (ha), before double-backing south.  Got home with enough time for me to prep for the meeting.

Called it a day then.

Alcohol.   I wrote about the white sangria above. Two more notes.

1. White wine do Moedo - made locally near the Grutas do Moedo, a fortified wine with a smooth sweet flavor, and some raisins on the nose. Sort of like Jerez, and a bit sweeter than the Moscatels we tried in Portugal.  I bought a small bottle - less so because I liked it, more so because I wanted a souvenir - and we already have a bottle of a French aperitif from Le Gorges du Fier in Savoy - a similar place.  B.

2. Cacho Fresco vihno regional Tejo. A fizzy white wine our landlady left for us the first day. On the sweeter side, but not too much sweetness, refreshing, nice summer sipping wine again. Olga liked it too. B. Nothing sophisticated - just sit on a terrace and drink kind of wine.

Steps. Google fit thinks I did 10,199 steps for the day. The watch has me at 12732, so today, the discrepancy is similar with yesterday, but it goes in the other direction. At least by adding yesterday's and today's steps we reach agreement.

Tomorrow. Alcobaca monastery in the morning, then Nazarre in the afternoon-evening. Hopefully the weather helps make the beach visit work out well. 

We have a bit of "technical debt" by not visiting Leiria today. We'll see if we can visit it in one of the other days.