Porto - Finalement!

So I went to Porto, Portugal!!! Where I  met Zorro and touched the other side of the Atlantic Ocean! My friend and I pretty much decided to go to Porto because the airfare was ridiculously cheap (less than $50 total round trip) and because going to Portugal sounded awesome. And it was!

We arrived in the evening, and took the tram (which was super modern) from the airport to the station right by our hostel. Our hostel was really nice! It was kind of empty though, which was weird. My friend and I were the only people in an 8-bed dorm! But it was in a good location and very clean, which is the most important thing. And it was across the street from this cool blue tile church! I didn't know this before we got there, but it turns out ceramic tiles are really big in Portugal. There were a lot of really pretty buildings covered with them.

For dinner, we went to a seafood restaurant! I had the salmon, which came with potatoes and tomatoes. Curiously, there were plates at our table, but then the food was served on a separate plate with a serving spoon. Even though it was a single serving. Little do the Portuguese know, they're actually washing twice as many dishes as they need to! Anyways, the salmon was really good! I was a little jealous of my friend who got fries with her meal instead of just potatoes - how American of me!

The next morning, we got up early and headed down to the Douro river. We got a little confused, and went down what may have been a private street. Woops... But eventually we saw this!

The Ponte Luís bridge! The top part is tram tracks, the bottom part is for cars, and pedestrians can walk on both levels. The bridge is really cool looking! I loved the color of the metal, and the the two level/arch structure is really interesting. Plus it looks really cool contrasted with all the cute colorful houses along the banks. We spent a long time taking pictures of the bridge, and then crossing the bridge and taking pictures of the Douro. We walked along the river a little too and saw all these neat old wine boats with wooden barrels on them. I don't think they actually use them anymore, but they definitely looked cool! I wish we had seen some actually sailing down the river.





We wanted to tour a wine cave, but they told us the English tour wasn't for another two hours, so we walked up this big hill to see the view from the top of the bridge. We also saw this aerial ski lift thing that you could take from down by the river to up to the top of the hill, by the bridge. It was a little eerie watching it, because all these pods were going by with no one in them. And there were very few people in the street, and almost no one in the tram when it went by. This added to the effect of our empty hostel and the gloomy weather, and compared to some of the other more tourist-packed places we've been, Porto seemed almost post-apocalyptic!

Then we went to like my favorite part of the whole trip: the wine cave tour!!! We went to Sandeman, which I highly recommend if you're ever in Porto. You can recognize them by their awesome Zorro with a wine glass logo. While we were waiting in the lobby for the tour to start, we were watching their promotional video montage on the big flat-screen on the wall. I thought my favorite scene where a hand passionately plunges into a stew of fermenting grapes and emerges with an oozing fistfull, until I saw the scenes of the wine cave tours being given by someone dressed as the Zorro logo! "OhmyGod wouldn't it be so amazing if our tour guide was dressed like that too?!" I asked my friend. "Turn around, very slowly," she responded. And there was our guide, DRESSED AS ZORRO!!!

"OMGOMGOGMOGMOGMGOMGOGMOMG, IT'S ZORRO!!!" I whisper-yelled to my friend. He had the hat, the cape, it was crazy! It was so appropriate that we were at Sandeman because it has always been one of my dreams to be led on a wine cave tour by Zorro. I could barely contain myself, in fact, I pretty much didn't, when he was leading the way down the aisles of dramatically lit old wine barrels. "It's so dramatic!!" I "whispered" to my friend. I tried to at least be discrete with the picture taking. But I guess he heard me because when he stopped next to a poster of the logo, he explained why they wear the hat and cape and said, "So don't tell your friends you went on a wine cave tour led by Zorro." My friend and I started laughing, and he looked right at me and said, "You already did, didn't you?" "Uhh, yes..."

Anyways, even besides not-Zorro, the tour was really cool, and there was a wine tasting included at the end. (Not-Zorro kept asking us if we were sure we were over 16 (the drinking age in Portugal). *sigh*) We tasted two wines, a white and a red. Surprisingly, I actually preferred the white this time. And I really wanted to ask not-Zorro to take a photo with us, but he changed out of his costume before I had the chance! It was very sad.

Then we took the bus out to the beach, so we could see the Atlantic ocean. We also saw this awesome sculpture thing that looked like a UFO made out red netting. By this time it was raining, so we didn't spend much time at the beach, but now I've touched the Atlantic Ocean from both sides!

When we took the bus back to the main part of Porto, we finally had lunch, and then walked around in the rain for a while. We checked out some souvenir shops; they all had these cool painted wooden roosters. I guess they are a symbol of good luck in Portugal. I got a tiny one for my desk!


Later, we went back to the bridge to see it all lit up at night and the lights along the river. It was really pretty! We were pretty exhausted though, so we soon went back to our hostel to lie down for a little before going to get dinner. We left for dinner around 8:00, and we were still at the cafe, waiting for our check at 11:30... Service was a little slow. And I guess Portuguese people eat even later than French people, because people were still coming in the whole time we were there. Around 10:30, this huge group of people around our age, who had a reservation, started coming in, and they were still just getting drinks when we left, so I guess they must have started eating around midnight!

One Porto specialty is the Francesinha sandwich, which is quite something. We didn't try them, but we saw people eating them in all the food places we went to. They're like a foot high! And surrounded by fries! From a menu: "This sandwich is made with bread, wet-cured ham, spicy smoked sausage, fresh sausage, steak, and covered with melted cheese and a hot, spicy, and rich tomato and beer sauce." We seriously saw some that had even more different kinds of meat in them. And of course, after all that, you need beer sauce on top. 


The next morning, we got up early and flew back to Bordeaux. And schoolwork. Yikes! Overall, Porto was really fun, and I'd definitely like to go back to Portugal some day, maybe to visit Lisbon.


À bientôt!