Portugal and Islands - 2019

The first king of Portugal, Alfonso Henrique, was born in the city of Guimarães. Today, a second ‘King for the Day’, our birthday boy, visited this well-preserved medieval city with his small consort (Connie and Vaughan).

Guimarães is a city in northern Portugal and is located around 55km northeast from Porto and we travelled there easily by train from the São Bento train station in Porto. It took us around 1 hour and 15 minutes to get there and cost each of us €3.10 roundtrip.

On the train, a Portuguese lady was sitting next to us. She was not going to let our lack of Portuguese get the best of us while we were together with her, for an hour. She announced the train stops, pointed out and named the flowering trees, and finally shared the good deal that she got on a silk scarf from Aveiro. Oh my! She took off her scarf and draped it around me, this way and that, showing me all the ways the scarf could be worn. I smiled a lot and nodded, while Chris laughed while she insisted that he take photos. It sure made our time on the train go fast! Btw, it was a pretty scarf. One of her buddies suggested that it could be used as her death shroud. We understood that, or thought we did.

We walked down the street to a pretty church with tended gardens on the boulevard in front of it. The castle with its turrets sat on a hilltop so we could see it from wherever we were and that’s where we were headed.

Once we entered the old city walls, we immediately headed towards the imposing Dukes of Bragança Palace, built in the style of a French chateau. Vaughan commented on how German it looked, with its 39 cylindrical brick chimneys. He was close.

Inside the palace, there was a lovely museum showcasing furniture, Flemish tapestries and medieval weapons. The ceiling in two of the rooms looked like the bottom of a big overturned boat. Built in 1401 by the first Duke of Bragança (and later restored to be the presidential residence for Salazar, the Portuguese dictator), it is currently an Official Residence of the Presidency of the Republic of Portugal. But it is open for visitors.

The chapel in the palace was beautifu, especially the stained glass window. There wasn’t any way that we could capture the amazing colours of the glass with our cellphone’s camera. Maybe Vaughan got a better photo with his good camera.

Between the palace and the castle is the Romanesque São Miguel do Castelo Church, built in the 13th century. Inside the church, the whole floor was covered with flat, carved gravestones of kings and queens and knights who had died in battle. The walls had carvings which we are assuming were the stone masons’ signatures.

Vaughan and I did a little bit of mountain climbing on a trail to get up to the seven-towered Guimarães castle that was built in the 11th century and was the birthplace of Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal. The castle is well preserved and is definitely one of the most majestic buildings in town, as well one of the greatest symbols of the history of Portugal.

Lunch was beckoning so we left the castle and looked for a recommended restaurants called Restaurante ETC. But first we had to walk down the Rua da Santa Maria street through the pristine old medieval historical centre of Guimarães.

The historical centre of Guimarães is considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Largo da Oliveira and Santiago – two of the main squares downtown – were delightful. Cafes and balloon vendors, little shops and sight-seers made the squares happening places. The two parks were both surrounded by historical buildings with arches and medieval facades that made us feel like we had stepped back in time.

By now our stomach, were grumbling and I was getting a bit hangry so we continued our search for the Restaurante ETC. Chris has his trusty Google Maps App. on that took us right to the place but ...

When we got there, the proprietor told us that the restaurant was closed now because his chef just got a call that his father had died and had to leave. He must have seen our faces drop and felt badly for us because he ended up inviting us in anyways for a steak dinner! He said that he liked Canadians! And what a wonderful lunch/dinner we had!

At Etc. there are only huge portions of amazing traditional dishes, with meat fit for a king as the mainstay of the menu. It is a family business where quality and service is what matters, so we enjoyed both the food, the Vinho Verde and the atmosphere.

The piece de resistance was the amazing dessert (birthday cake?) that arrived for Chris. It was heavenly. This special desert had a mix of the best fruit and cakes of the house piled on top of each other with chocolate ice cream added on top. It was served with a smile and everyone sang Happy Birthday to Chris as he blew out the candle. What a fantastic end to the dinner!

And just for the record, on birthdays, calories don’t count.

We rolled ourselves to the train station and headed home. It was our last day and night in Porto and what a nice day it turned out to be!Les mer

We went up to the top of the hill again to visit another museum. As I mentioned before, Coimbra has very steep, winding, narrow, cobblestone streets that go up to the university area. But the city has helped people who have to do this trek up and down every day. There is an elevator up. There are mini electric buses, called Grandmother’s slippers, that do a circuit every 20 minutes. stairs were added. And the city has replaced some of the very slippery, limestone cobblestone with granite. Even our fabulous ON shoes had trouble gripping the limestone. We cannot imagine how many people would fall, when it rains!

Our destination was to the Museu National Machado de Castro which we heard had a huge collection of very rare and precious objects, as well as great views over the city. We decided that exercise wouldn’t hurt us so we bit the bullet and walked through the old city gate, with holes in the ceiling where oil had been poured on enemies below, and up up, up to the museum.

The museum was housed in what used to be a Bishop’s palace that had been built on the platform of an old Roman Forum. A Forum was the main center of a Roman city. Usually located near the physical center of a Roman town, on a crossroads, it served as a public area in which commercial, religious, economic, political, legal, and social activities occurred.

Under the museum, is a well-preserved cryptoportico that we wanted to see and that’s the reason why we climbed to the top of the hill, again.

A cryptoportico is “a semi-subterranean gallery whose vaulting supports portico structures above ground and which is lit from openings at the tops of its arches”. In Coimbra, the Forum was built over uneven ground so a two storey cryptoportico was built under it. The whole area under the platform had tunnels and small rooms in it. It was used to store grains, food and animals and provide a cool place for people to walk when the weather was extremely hot. The sewers flowed under this structure also. All neat and tidy.

Apparently only a small section on the vaulted ceiling has had any work done in modern times, although some parts were rebuilt in the 14th century. Most of what we saw was how it was 2000 years ago. When we entered the dark interior, we could just wander around the huge basement-like labyrinth. It was like a maze! Finally everyone finds their way out and there was a man who indicated where the exit was. What an incredible place.

I have only mentioned the underground vaults but the whole museum was wonderful and had good English translations. We were there for four hours! They even have a restaurant with great views that overlooks the river and the lower city where we had a small coffee break.

The museum was well worth the €3 that we paid!Les mer