Back in Feburary, we went to Portugal.
And while Sameer loved Sintra, and was quite ok with Lisbon, he had a slightly different response to Porto.
*Constant vigilance mode activated*
We arrived in the city late one evening, had a fancy dinner, and went to our Hotel.
Which was a pretty place with nice murals (see https://fishwithwhiskey.com/2024/02/19/the-two-metres-top/).
But the prettiness did not make up for the fact that someone literally used a key to open our door at 3 o clock in the morning, and only backed out when I sat bolt upright in bed.
My heart raced for about twenty minutes and it took me a while to get back to sleep.
Sameer Slept On.
When we mentioned the Incident at reception the next morning they didn’t apologize, but instead did a kind of ‘oh yeah that was probably just one of the staff.’
CoolCoolCool.
Absolutely zero stars.
Anyway, we left the house, and began to wander around the city.
Which was filled with blue skies, and pretty houses….
Honestly, the longer I live in the UK, the more and more excited I get just by seeing this colour above me:
(although the random monk guy is perhaps less of a necessity).
We had booked a walking tour for the afternoon, so decided to stop for some food before that began
Enter the Francesinha:
Oh man.
A Porto-originated Portuguese sandwich filled with large amounts of mixed meat (steak +something more sausage-y in this case), smothered in melted cheese, and swimming in a tomato-beer sauce (molho de francesinha)
It was… actually weirdly delicious? I guess i expected it to be overpoweringly meaty or fatty, but the different elements seemed to balance eachother out pretty well.
Happily fed, we hit the streets again, this time in search of coffee….
Oh, and of course we managed to find a nice hipster place:
Of course, it’s not possible to be in Portugal and not eat some Pasteis de Nata.
So, we complied:
We headed to our tour starting spot, took one of our most successful couple photos yet….
And started to learn about the history of Porto and Portugal.
From the time the Celts roamed the Iberian highlands, through the Roman Influence, the introduction of the Visigoths and then the Moors, the reconquering by Christians, invasion by the Spanish during a dynasty crisis, empire building invasions through 16th century, rise of the republic and then of Salazar.
For example, this is the ‘head lice cafe’, nicknamed because resistance discussions would happen here, and people would scratch their head as a signal that the secret police were coming:
Meanwhile, while listening to our guide, we could also watch some students carrying giant spoons through the city, in some sort of hazing ritual??:
BEHOLD!
By the way did you notice that we’re back at that same lookout from the moring? Clearly we are naturally brilliant at finding the cool city sights, even without the tour group!
My overall feeling was that Porto is an incredibly pretty city, with lots of interesting pathways, different kind of beautiful buildings and all that blue.
Sameer took a slightly different view, finding it overstimulating (it was pretty noisy, with lots of construction) and genuinely hazardous. He was terrified of the uneven streets, and kept a running tally of how many people he saw trip or slip.
Basically, he spent the the two days incredibly wired.
One of our final stops on the tour was the main station, which has a very pretty combination of blue tiles and yellow ceilings, which match perfectly with the blue skies and golden light filtering through:
GLOW!
We headed back out into the blue….
…., and ended up the tour at the Romanesque Porto Cathedral.
The guide told us of Salazar’s gradual downfall following a cerebral hemorrhage in the late 60s. Living for nearly 2 more years, he continued to ‘rule’ the country, without realizing he had been removed from power until his death.
(^Me asking Sameer to look at the camera instead of darting around looking for traps and hazards. Note the highly beautiful and not at all forced ‘smile’)
Okok, cheesy end photo:
He’s distracted, but he’s cute.
Feb 18, 2024