We followed through with our vow to sleep in, but in the end it wasn’t all that late. It was good to have a slow morning with nothing going on, though. We went down to eat our free hotel breakfast, but we were a little disappointed. It wasn’t that the breakfast was bad, it was just a typical hotel breakfast. No local foods, unfortunately.
The next step was to marshal our forces and go out to see Porto in the daylight. First impression in the day time was completely different from the night time. You could really take in the architecture, and I took lots of pictures of buildings and facades. As usual, Kuniko was very patient with me. We wandered the town using a tourist map from our hotel, and also my GPS when we got lost. Most of the city is grey, but many of the roofs were painted bright orange, which made for an interesting contrast. Doors and windows were also usually colorful, and you could really feel how old the city was. It is a medium sized city, so there was some trash and bad smells now and then, but no worse than any other city we’ve visited. There were hills everywhere, reminding me a lot of San Francisco, but also plenty of seagulls, as the Atlantic Ocean was not that far off.
Walking up a hillside we found an old church with a beautiful view over the Douro River. From here we could see across the river to the Nova de Gaia area that housed all the port caves. All the big port company names were there, and it was like looking at a box of chocolates that you just opened. Which one should be enjoyed first? We walked down the hill to the riverside, and then across the big bridge that links the two sides of the river together. During our trip we spent a lot of time going back and forth across this bridge.
Our first stop was into Sandeman’s. It was still just after breakfast, and I didn’t really feel like tasting port so early, but it was interesting to look through and check out the system. Apparently they were open and letting people take tours and tastings. We decided to save them for later, and as we left a huge Japanese tour group came in. We were surprised to see Japanese people here – it was the first time to see any since we came to Portugal (and actually, it was almost the last time as well – not many Japanese tourists in Porto).
As we continued down the street we found ourselves in need of a restroom, so we decided the next open port house we would stop there for a tasting and to use their toilet. We followed some signs up and down some hills, found ourselves walking down empty pathways and dirt roads, but eventually discovered the tasting room at Offley. I wasn’t very familiar with Offley so we stepped inside, and arranged a tasting (and a bathroom break). The tastings were pretty reasonable, and we could enjoy two flights of very different styles of port. I had a flight that was more geared towards vintage and ruby ports, and Kuniko had a tawny port flight. I have never really been into tawny ports, but my feelings about them started to change while in Porto. There are a lot of great tawny ports out there, and the elegance really came through. I think I still prefer the rich, ripe fruit of good vintage ports, though. Too bad they are so expensive! At the tasting the staff was nice enough to guide us through the flights in English, so we could really understand exactly what we were tasting.
Since we had several glasses of port inside us we wanted to keep the party rolling, so we walked up the hill until we found Taylor’s. There we had just two glasses of port and also some cheese, and sat outside on the picnic tables on the lawn, and enjoyed the view of the river valley. Some peacocks were walking around (with babies), a strange looking chicken, and some cats. It was a nice place to relax, and the port wine quality was a step up from Offley (in my opinion).
All this port was taking its toll on our empty stomachs, so we walked all the way down the hill to the riverside, and found a small restaurant along the main walkway. A tout came up and sat us at a table (turned out he was American), and we ordered some beers to cleanse our palate, and some food to share. This was our first experience with the Francesinha – basically a meat sandwich completely covered in cheese and chili sauce – a heart attack inducer. It was really good, mainly because it is at the opposite spectrum of what we usually eat in our daily lives. We also ordered some picapao (kind of a mixed meat bowl) and some garlic shrimp.
Feeling the need to move after all these calories we walked back to our hotel neighborhood. It is a pretty steep uphill climb to get back to the area of our hotel, so that helped with the exercise a bit. Near our hotel I found a couple of local supermarkets using the GPS application on my phone, and we had some fun shopping while buzzing with alcohol. The prices in Porto were much cheaper than Paris or London, so it was a bit of a free-for-all. We scored lots of good stuff for omiyage, juice, water, sardine pate, and more. It was a whole lot of fun. Then it was just a short walk to our hotel, where we crashed out for an afternoon siesta. Our feet could really use the rest.
We woke up around 5 pm, and decided to go walk by the riverside. We tried a new route to get there, passing through some shopping streets and regular neighborhoods. There was a hippie guy making huge bubbles for the kids and dogs to pop, and it reminded me of Berkeley, California for some reason. As we walked it started to drizzle, but we weren’t really getting wet and it was still warm.
Along the river there was a long line of restaurants that were serving food for tourists, and it was very easy to stop at one at random and order some wine and food. We split a half bottle of local red (that was really good – the still wines were much better than I expected) and also had a bowl of “duck rice”. We just sat and enjoyed the atmosphere and drank our wine. I noticed that people that had arrived after us were starting to get our food, but no duck rice appeared. After a while I gave the waiter a look, and he just shrugged. I was gearing up to complain, but finally it showed up. We had killed the half bottle by that time, and so I ordered a glass of wine to have with the food. The guy hooked me up by filling the glass all the way to the brim – thanks, man!
While we sat here there was a stream of tourists behind us walking along, but nowhere near as many as we had seen in Paris and London. The amount was just about right for us, and it never felt like we were fighting crowds. There was some live music playing in the distance, and a couple of street performers were working the crowd at various intervals. At the center of attention was the river, and the port riverboats that were always anchored along it. Porto really is a beautiful city, and we were enjoying our time there.
Since we had only one dish at this restaurant, we figured we’d hit a few more restaurants having one dish at each of them. It is a common strategy when we go out in Japan, so we thought we’d adapt it to this situation. Our next stop was a seafood restaurant on the other side (the port cave side) of the river. Our server reminded me of Anna Kendrick, and she poured us wine and served us cod with cream as our main dish. We were getting plenty of cod on this trip – it was the local specialty fish apparently. We had originally ordered something else, but she told us not to order it because it wouldn’t go well with what he had already ordered. Thanks for the inside tips!
Our last stop of the evening was at Sandeman’s. Outside their main port facility they had a restaurant with lots of outdoor tables to enjoy the view. We grabbed a table and ordered a cheese platter with some port. The cheese was really good – different from what we have had so far this trip. It was very moist, kind of like a giant BabyBell wheel. It went really well with our tawny ports, and made a nice finish for the evening. It was getting late and lots of shenanigans were happening around us, so there was plenty to see. Some kids were playing soccer down the way, and one couple suddenly ran off without paying their bill. Almost all the restaurant waiters ran after them, and that was the first time I’d see it happen in Europe.
We paid our bill, which was a little more expensive than we expected (maybe we were covering the lost money from the people that bailed) but totally worth it for the port and cheese experience. We walked from there back across the bridge, up the hill, and to our hotel. I spent some time writing in this journal, and then it was time for bed. I think our plan for tomorrow is more of the same!
