Across the River - Gaia

There’s no need to get started very early in the morning. We think we’re going to sleep in every day and make our way out sometime between 10 and 11 AM — that’s how we started today. 

Our last full day in Porto began by taking a walk from our hotel to the market Bolháo. Meat, poultry, fruit, vegetables, cheese …  all available for purchase. We took a slow walk around and then purchased some fruit and freshly squeezed juice. We’ve been in markets in several of other countries that were very similar to this. The noticeable difference of this market is that everything was very white and pristinely clean. 







We then strolled a few blocks to a pedestrian-only street for some window shopping. It was a mix of touristy stores and regular stores and mall-type stores. Nothing too exciting, but fun to see different things. 

Since it was all downhill, we decided to go to the bridge that crosses the river and go over to Gaia, where all of the port wine cellars are located. 



Lunch-ish time! We headed directly for a Rick Steves’ recommendation:  a rooftop lounge over looking the Douro from the opposite side as yesterday. We decided to spend a couple of hours on a bottle of wine … and cured meats and bread. 







It was then time for a port wine cellar tour and tasting. We learned a lot about how port wine is made and … drank port wine … 🥂.  













We drank a little too much for mid-day … After the wine at lunch and the port tasting, we were ready for a nap.  We headed back to the hotel to sober up. 😁. It was about 4pm and there was a lot of activity along the river on our way back. 



We took a nice nap and woke up to have dinner at about 8pm. We decided to go back to the great restaurant that our hotel suggested — the one we had the first night. It was great. It may sound strange, but Jim had cubes of pork and clams with pickled vegetables on top after a delicious mixed salad. Kristi had melon and prosciutto, and then veal in a mushroom sauce. We even had dessert tonight. 





Porto lives up to its name; it feels like a crossroads of people, culture, and languages. We can imagine what it may have been like 400 years ago as merchant ships came and went. The locals seem to embrace this and do their best to make everyone feel welcome. Most everyone speaks English, which seems to be used as the language of choice for everyone who doesn’t speak Portuguese. It was a last minute addition to this trip and we are glad we started here. 

If it seems like we focus a lot on food and drink … make no mistake about it … it’s on purpose. 😁

Comments

  1. Merrick BJune 15, 2023 at 7:19 PM

    Portugal is supposed to be a top retirement move for Americans. I think I need to move!

    ReplyDelete

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