Day 11 - Tuesday, October 29, 2024 - Porto

The ship left our overnight port at 7am and went through the last lock on the Douro River. We docked a little further down at 9:30 and left by bus for downtown Porto.

It took us about an hour to get to Porto and along the way we passed through vast areas affected by the forest fires just a few months ago that came close to the outskirts of Porto.

The bus let us off in Gaia on the south side of the river just opposite Porto. From there we had a beautiful view of the Porto seaside just opposite. The buildings were historically painted different colors because there was often very heavy fog and the colors made it easier for the sailors to find where they needed to stop.

We walked over the river on a steel bridge from the 1800s that was built by a student of Eiffel. The highlight was a visit to the main train station which is elaborately decorated with painted tiles of historic scenes. Our guide told us a funny story about the building of the train station. The location was a convent until 1834 when the religious orders were disbanded but the nuns were allowed to live there for the rest of their lives and not forced to move. The city planned to demolish the convent to build the train station but couldn't while a nun was living there. They eventually offered to pay for a place for the sole remaining nun who was happy to leave and they could build the station. (Wikipedia has a different account).

We spent some time relaxing along the waterfront before coming back to the ship for lunch, relaxing and starting to pack.

There was a "captain's toast" before dinner.

Old Porto Harbot


Train station tile art

Replica of wine boat from 1700s





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 3 - Monday, October 21, 2024 - In Lisbon

Image
 After a delicious breakfast at the hotel, we had a morning bus tour of Lisbon. The highlight was a visit to a shop founded in 1837 that makes the Pastel de Nata which Lisbon is famous for. They are egg custard tarts and we each had one warm out of the oven - delicious! The restaurant sells 20,000 a day! Our tour guide said these are the only "real" ones. Several of these were provided in our hotel room but they didn't compare - cold and firm. We stopped at a massive sculpture memorial of 500 years of Portuguese navigation from 1460 to 1960. There is a huge mosaic in front of the monument with a map of the world showing where Portuguese sailors had visited ports all along the coast of Africa to Asia. After the tour, we took the metro to a recommended beer garden which was closed😓 but wandering down the street we found a seafood restaurant where I had a delicious shrimp curry which was more than I could eat. After lunch we took a bus to the Lisbon Story Center near the wa...
Read more

Day 10 - Monday, October 28, 2024 - Amarante

Image
We are on our way back down the river. All this morning we are cruising from Pinhao to Peso da Regua where we will dock after lunch and then take a bus to Amarante. The ship will continue on to Porto Antigo where we will meet it later in the afternoon. We went through the deepest lock at 115'. It is pretty impressive that it only takes a few minutes for the ship to drop that distance. Travel is always full of adventures. We wanted to make a train reservation for Porto to Lisbon and discovered the trains are on strike for a week. Then I tried FlixBus which was recommended but the web site wasn't working to take my payment. Then we finally got tickets on another bus line. The bus only takes 3 hours and 15 minutes compared with 2 hours and 45 minutes for the high-speed train. After lunch we took a one hour bus ride to the city of Amarante in the mountains north of the river. This city is famous for the priest Goncalo who came here in the 1200s and believed that if a bridge was bui...
Read more

Day 6 - Thursday, October 24, 2024 - Braga and Guimaraes

Image
We had a more relaxed morning and didn't have to leave until 9am. It was about an hour drive to Braga, first stopping at Bom Jesus do Monte Cathedral on a mountain overlooking the city. The legend is that a cross was found there in the 1300s, before the presence of Christianity in the area and as a consequence, a chapel was built here and it become a site for pilgrimages. The cathedral was built in the 1700s and is now part of a large complex with hotels and beautiful gardens. The most striking aspect is the unusual area under the cross at the front of the church which has a 3-dimensional scene of the crucifixion with the women supporters and soldiers below Jesus and the two convicts. Braga was first founded by the Romans in 16BC and was subsequently occupied by the Moors, barbarians,  and various European countries. After visiting the main cathedral dating back to the 12th century we had two hours to enjoy lunch and explore the historic part of the town. Then to Guimaraes which is...
Read more