Breakfast and a fascinating walk

Breakfast at the hostel was a very pleasant affair, with bread, cheese, ham and salami, plus fruit, yoghurt and cereals, and freshly baked chocolate brownies.

I enjoyed a chat with fellow pilgrims from Chicago and Rotterdam (both due to start walking on Monday), and a Moroccan guy who was here on holiday. We put the world to rights for good 45 mins or so over plentiful coffee!

Once refreshed, I got ready for the day and went in search of a man with a white umbrella.

This turned out to be Jorge, who was to be my walking guide for the next couple hours, as well being a chef by night. The tour was really interesting and took us from the 18-19th centuries back to the foundation of what became Porto in pre-Roman times. I got chatting to a lovely couple from Toronto before the tour started and we carried on chatting in the gaps between the tour stops.

The tour started at the Fonte dos Leões (Lion Fountain) which features griffons rather than lions and has an exact twin in Leicester, because King João I (John I) married Phillippa of Lancaster (John of Gaunt’s daughter, who was born at Leicester Castle, in 1387, cementing England and Portugal’s long alliance.

Next we saw the twinned baroque church’s Igreja do Carmo and Igreja dos Carmelitas, with 10,000 hand painted blue and white azulejos tiles forming a fresco on the outside of the latter. The darker blue colouring at the bottom is the true colour, the rest looks faded but is just under a protective covering due to the extensive metro extension building works.

Jorge then took us to a tile shop and gallery to explain the history of azulejos tiles, using techniques borrowed from the Moors and their al-zillīj (little polished stones) and cobalt blue and white glazing borrowed from Delftware in the Netherlands.

We were taken to Jardim da Cordoaria, a park on the site of a former rope factory (cordoaria) and then to the Torre dos Clérigos (and church), a dramatic baroque tower built just outside the original city walls.

We saw the site of the first public hospital in Porto, and then through winding and steep streets to find a posh clothes shop inside a medieval house, to show us the structure of the house and reuse of the huge granite stones.

Finally Jorge took us uphill to finish just outside the Sé do Porto catedral, the site of João I and Phillippa of Lancaster’s wedding.

I thought it was then time to find a shady cafe for a pit stop of Pastel de Nata, washed down with some more coffee!Read more