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.