chawen

Out and About in Porto's Historic Center

Bom Dia,

I am tired, having walked a lot and gone up and down, but I enjoyed seeing Porto's beautiful historic center, and I honored my room by crossing the Ponte Luiz I. On my way home I passed the Mercado de Bolhao, and somehow a bottle of tawny port and a bottle Portuguese vinho verde rose found their way into my bag. I have become a Big Fan of the tawny port, and I am enjoying some with almonds right now.

My major goal was to find the Tourist Information Office and obtain a map. This I accomplished eventually because my carefully noted down directions were blown to bits by some major construction that led pedestrians into convoluted detours. This was not an entirely bad thing, however, since the detour led me to the famous train station San Bento, rightly regarded as one of the must see sights here because of the beautiful tile decorations. Predictably the place was packed with tourists.

The tourists! Yeah, I am one, and on rare occasions have taken a tour, but tourist groups are the bane of my existence on these trips. They are a glop of humanity some thirty or forty strong clogging the sidewalks and blocking the view.

Porto--and Portugal in general- is a popular destination and justly so. I had hoped to escape the crowds by showing up in April instead of late May. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Anyway I walked around a lot and marked places I intended to visit and enjoyed licking windows and admiring the beautiful architecture. I am Very Satisfied with my choice of destination.

After a lot of up and down I came upon The Bridge. The top layer is for us pedestrians and the trams. I gotta take a tram one day.

Pil, trams are just busses on rails.

NO! I deny this. Busses bad, trams good.

Where was I? Anyway there's plenty to see here, and I'm pleased that I could walk around so much. My foot was sore, but walking did not make it worse, so I am encouraged and looking forward to much touristing tomorrow--although I'm pretty sure I'm going to wake up stiff.

Adeus