2016.09.14 (Montreal – Porto)
Our overnight flight from Montréal to Porto was ok except for the stop over in Lisbon which was a bit longer than expected. Immigration and baggage claim were promptly completed. Coming out of Porto’s airport, we quickly realized that English did not appear to be widely spoken. We got our introduction to Porto’s light rail metro system with our commute from the airport to the station closest to our hotel. By 1:30pm, we had checked into our room and by 3:00pm we left our hotel for a self-guided walking tour of Porto’s tourist area. We hopped in the metro to get there faster. Although we were told that Porto was very hilly, until we got to the center of town, we did not really understand where the hills were. After wrapping up our walking tour, we walked back to our hotel while looking for some restaurant offering. By 6:00pm, we were quite tired and somewhat eager to eat, so after exploring the streets around our hotel we ended up eating at a shopping mall food court. We bought some water and snacks at a large food store in the shopping mall. We both fell asleep shortly after 9pm.
2016.09.15 (Porto)
The alarm woke us up at 8am from our deep sleep. The hotel breakfast included with our booking was great and plentiful. Not a bad start as we mastered the 12-button coffee machine after a few unknown brews.
After some quick guide book reviews, we set out for a day trip to Braga, the 3rd largest city of Portugal – a one hour train ride from Porto. The plan is to visit the Santuário do Bom Jesus do Monte and Braga’s Cathedral (Santa Maria de Braga). At the train station, I managed to upset the ticket agent by speaking Portuguese with my 1% proficiency level – according my Duolingo mobile app. The agent suggested: “You should ask me if I spoke English!”. (I might suggest to Duolingo to include this important phrase in their first lesson!) The train ride allowed us some valuable time to do some additional trip planning and some expense tracking while still catching some scenery along the way. In Braga, we walked from the train station to the downtown area where we took a city bus to the Santuário do Bom Jesus do Monte. The long stair cases brought us to the top of the hill of the Santuário offering great views of Braga along the way. Back in Braga, we stopped by the Cathedral but we did not bother with the guided tour instead we opted for croissant and lattes in a nice pastry shop.
Back at Porto’s train station, we bought our train tickets for our next journey to Coimbra. We discovered that TripAdvisor is offering its restaurant review for Porto as an offline download for mobile device – a very convenient tool. We had seafood for supper a few kms from the train station after which we took the metro to our hotel. A full and enjoyable day.
2016.09.16 (Porto)
After our hotel breakfast buffet, we took the metro to the downtown where we started our visit at the São Bento train station (2nd train station in Porto) noted for its fine azulejos(tile) murals.
What would be a visit of Porto without a Port wine tour? We picked one from the half dozen Port wine lodges on the Douro river front.
To steady ourselves after our Port tasting, we embarked on a 1-hour river cruise.
The tourist and local crowds were heavy on this Friday afternoon. After climbing the hills and down again, we opted to escape the downtown and hopped on a city bus to visit the nearby town of Foz. We returned to our hotel using the metro. Porto’s, as most European cities, has very convenient public transportation.
We found, thanks to TripAdvisor, a good restaurant for supper where we had our first Portuguese meal: Francesinha.
