Day 17 - Port Chasing

We both had a decent night’s sleep. I popped out early to get milk for our coffee & weetabix. It wasn’t until 11am, that we finally left our cool stone apartment to embark on my walking tour of Porto.

We initially headed uphill again to the 1st stop of the day, the bell tower known as Torre dos Clérigos. It is an impressive tower & it is possible to climb it to the top for views across the city. We discovered that it was €15 to enter as part of a museum deal. We didn’t.

We passed Lello Bookshop & still there was a queue estimated to take a minimum of 90 minutes to enter after paying an entrance fee. We didn’t.

Instead we entered Igreja de Santo António dos Congregados, where we both said a prayer. I left Jackie praying whilst I took a wander around the attractively decorated, but rather macabre interior.

We then moved on to Sao Bento Railway Station, a transportation hub located in the heart of Porto. The French Beaux-Arts structure holds within 20,000 magnificent azulejo tin-glazed ceramic tiles depicting Portugal’s past - its royalty, its wars, and its transportation history. The blue and white tiles were placed over a period of 11 years (1905–1916) by artist Jorge Colaço.

Built in 1900, the beautiful station was named after a Benedictine monastery that once occupied its space back in the 16th century. Destroyed by fire in 1783, the house of worship was rebuilt but by the 19th century was torn down to make way for the expanding railway system. Built by architect José Marques da Silva, the very first stone was laid by King Carlos I himself.

We then strolled down Rua Das Flores & stopped at the Mercador Cafe as recommended by Carlos. We ordered a couple of iced lattes & shared a portion of goat’s cheese on toast with redcurrant jam & walnuts. Carlos came up trumps as it was reasonably priced.

We made our way to Porto Cathedral and one of Porto’s oldest monuments. We refused to pay the €3 entrance fee & chose to admire it from the outside only. We then headed back down through the backstreets & back to our apartment for a toilet break & I even had a cold shower. It’s hot work walking up & down the steep streets of Porto.

We then continued my walking tour to the Igreja da Misericórdia do Porto, located back on the historic Rua das Flores. This church was also closed, so we consoled ourselves with a beer outside a bar at the bottom of Rua das Flores and watched the world go by.

Suitably refreshed we passed the Palácio da Bolsa (Stock Exchange Palace) which is a historical building but was closed due to a private function. Next door was the impressive Igreja de São Francisco (Church of Saint Francis) & is the most prominent Gothic monument in Porto, being also noted for its outstanding Baroque inner decoration. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The entrance fee was €9 so again we just admired the outside.

From here, we strolled along the Rio Douro river front & crossed the river over the Dom Luís I Bridge. The Dom Luís I Bridge is a double-deck metal arch bridge that spans the River Douro between the cities of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia in Portugal. At its construction, it’s 172 metres span was the longest of its type in the world. One young lad in pink shorts & trainers jumped into the river from the bridge, which seemed particularly foolhardy & painful.

On the south bank of the Rio Douro is the location for all the port wine caves. Our first stop was the Instituto do Bom Pastor Corpus Christi, which we just came across & thought looked interesting. It turned out to be both a chapel and an art gallery. Definitely worth a look.

Upon Carlos’ recommendation, we continued to the far end to the Ferreira Cellars. There was a queue of people waiting to go in & we discovered that they were queuing for one of the many tours packages. The cheapest was a €19 for a guided tour & 3 samples of port. Jackie decided we didn’t want to do the tour.

We walked back along the river front & Jackie found a little bar that was offering 5 tasters of port for just €5. We ordered the 5 tasters together with 2 large beers. The 5 very full taster glasses of port consisted of a sweet port, followed by a white port, a rose port, a tawny port & then a ruby port. During our Port tasting Jackie on not one, but two occasions managed to neck the entire glass of port after I had had just the tiniest of sips of it. To add insult to injury, she then decided that we shouldn’t order another set of ports for fear that we (she) might get too drunk!!!

We eventually tore ourselves out of this riverside bar & walked back over the Dom Luís I Bridge to the north side of the river. We headed away from the tourists & found a small Italian restaurant. At Jackie’s request we ordered just one starter of courgette bruschetta, one bowl of pasta & a bottle of wine to share. It was lovely, but I was still hungry and not impressed to be eating like a sparrow.

We were both knackered (probably through malnutrition) and had an early night.

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