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.
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