Ohhh Porto!

There's nothing like a weekend getaway to the other country on the Iberian Peninsula: Portugal.

It wasn't my first trip to Portugal. (I visited Lisbon in 2008.) But, I was blown away by how great it was, again. Seriously, although it shares the Iberian Peninsula with Spain, the culture and cities couldn't be more different! 

Katie and I started our weekend getaway on a Thursday night, to Salamanca! What a way to start a trip, with a trip to one of my favorite places! Yay! We were only in Salamanca for a few hours, to catch the bus to Porto, but we were able to see most of my friends in the short stop. We fed our faces with tapas from Cervantes and burritos and tacos from Chido's/Elektrotaco... and went to catch the bus. 

Now, this is where the true adventure began. It involved a grueling hour and a half wait OUTSIDE of the bus station. The bus station conveniently closed at midnight and our bus was at 1:30am. The ticket said to be there half an hour early, so we were there half and hour early. However, the bus doesn't play by the same rules. It decided to show up an hour late. One hour late. We were frozen (it was the coldest weekend of the year of course!) But, after the bus arrived, we were on our way... still frozen, but happy to be on the 6 hour bus. Thankfully, I was able to sleep the entire way, so it worked out perfectly!

We arrived to Porto at 6:30am (one hour time change from Spain.) We were once again left in the cold, in a random plaza. Plaza Galicia. Thankfully, we found a Spanish doctor with a map who helped us make our way to the center, as we were no where near a bus station. (Not like we knew where that was either...) After a cold walk, we finally arrived at our hostel. However, we couldn't enter until 9am... so, yes, that meant another grueling wait. We found a cafe (Cafe Bobby - highly recommended!) and waited it out eating two rounds of croissants and hot chocolates. We went two days in a row, it was that good.

Since we only had Friday and Saturday to explore, we jumped right in... we decided to do a bus tour, using it as transport throughout the city - and as it turned out - we were some of the only tourists using it! So, that meant it would stop as we wanted it to, let us take photos, and continue with the journey! Genial!  We saw many great places... let's just let some photos do the talking: 

Tasteful graffiti: "I truly love you."

Porto: doors, clothes, windows.

Checking the map: so many places to see!

Saw this sticker several times!

Streets of Porto!

Foz Beach

Gaia... Sandeman Winery and the Teleferico high above!

Porto

Wow!

Hello from Porto!

Sunset, Porto

Porto

Cool tile bricks!

Porto by night!

There were many things that caught my attention in Porto, but I think my favorite part was the colorful tiles on the old houses! All the tiles were so unique...

Blue, Yellow & White

Blue & White (super typical of Porto!)

Tilessss!!!

3D Yellow & White

Outside a high school...

Green!

Sao Benito Train Station has over 25,000 tiles alone!

Sao Benito Train Station, Porto

Gaia
Maybe you've never known of Porto "the city" ... but, maybe you've heard of "Port" wine. Well, Porto, Portugal, is the birth place of this wonderful drink! Of course, we took full advantage of free wine tours at Croft and Taylor's. Croft Winery even gives you a free tour of the facility before you try the wine! We arrived just in time to hear all about how they stomp the grapes, put it in barrels - sometimes up to 10 years! This is the perfect type of "educational tour"... the best part? The free samples at the end. Since Port wine is usually seen as a dessert wine, just a little goes a longgggg way! 

Gaia - Home of the Port Wineries!

Croft

Yummm

Vines - Taylor's Winery

Taylor's Winery

(This white was too sweet...)

View of Porto from Gaia.

Taylor's Winery

As for food... we had some wonderful meals. First, we tried the famous francesinha, a meat sandwich covered in cheese and spicy tomato sauce. We had tarta de nata sweets in the afternoon... And, of course, we couldn't leave Portugal without eating bacalao (cod fish) - it's famous in Portugal. I think it is because Portugal exports so much fish, that bacalao is the only fish left, so the people just started fixing it up...seriously, in over 100 ways. My favorite is bacalao dorado (bacalao, potato chips and eggs!) and a second runner up (the one I had in Porto) is bacalao with seafood. mmmmyummm! 

Katie and I eating lunch: Porto style!

The Francesinha.

Tarta de Nata.

Bacalao with seafood. yum!

Our first night, we sat down in a really nice restaurant and were given bilingual menus. The server continued to serve us plenty of appetizers... bread, olives, pate, freshly baked rolls... and the only thing I could think of was "37 euro bread and cheese, 37 euro bread and cheese". I immediately asked the waiter for the prices of these little teasers, which actually weren't too badly priced. However, due to a cultural misunderstanding in 2008, I wasn't about to be tricked again.

What do you want to pay for? (Sangria was on the house!)

In Lisbon, in 2008, my friends and I went to eat. Again, the table was garnished with fantastic bread baskets and cheese platters. We decided to pay for the bread, thinking it would be one euro each... when the basket went empty, they brought more - so - we figured that meant you pay for the first basket and eat as much as you want... well, we couldn't have been more wrong! When the ticket came, we had eaten 37 euros worth of bread and since we took the wrapper off the cheese and put it back on, we had to pay for that too. Lesson learned. 

So, Katie and I kindly told the waiter we would be eating the bread and that he should take the other dishes away. He did. The second time we went out for dinner, Saturday night, the same thing happened, only we stopped the waiter before he brought us appetizers. We kindly told him "we don't want any of those expensive appetizers. We know your tricks!" His response? He told us that a few years ago, everything placed on the table was a forced charge on your ticket! But now, they understand people don't want appetizers all the time. Well, he liked us, and he ended up giving us free olives - "my offer" - which is just the way I like my olives: gratis!  

Now, the second restaurant where we had dinner (the ones with "my offer olives") was a bit strange... at first. When we arrived, there was no one else there, just a table set up for 20 people in the front and four smaller tables in the back. We went to the back, sat down, and began bartering for appetizers! About ten minutes later, three boys arrived and sat at the table in front of us. There was a TV in front of their table and they kept holding their arms up and shush-ing us! Seriously! Football is super important...and our small conversation was clearly too much! Well, shortly after, while we were mid-meal, the group arrived - a birthday party. And, as it turned out, the "shush-ing boys" and the "birthday party-ers" were all friends. We were officially in the middle - eating our little hearts out. When we tried to leave (I do say tried), the waiter told us to say and have a drink - again, "his offer". Well the boys at the table next to us also liked that idea, so we just went with it. We sat down and talked for an hour or more... turns out, one of the boys was the owner of the restaurant and was pretty well to do in Porto. Had we been able to stay the Sunday, I think we could have gotten a boat ride out of the "shush-ing" boys... too bad! (But, probably for the better we had to leave!) 


Guimarães
We were able to tour Porto on Friday, which meant we had time to do an afternoon trip to Guimarães - Europe's European Cultural Capital for 2012 - on Saturday! Wow, it was pretty incredible! We spent the day walking around, searching for food (no one will serve you after 4pm), climbing around in a castle, taking photos of the hearts - the symbol for the Cultural Capital... 

Guimarães

Guimarães

Stations of the Cross

Beautiful tiles (& me!)

Tiles

Castillo de Guimarães

Guimarães

European Cultural Capital 2012

Guimarães

In the mid afternoon, we had the luxury of being serenaded by a *tuna band... what song, you ask? Since we were in Portugal, there is only one song that comes to mind "Ei Se Eu Te Pego/Nossa Nossa" - but, since we were Americans IN Portugal, they kindly sang IN English - ughhhh. "Delicious, Delicious, this girl is gonna kill me....Amazing, Amazing..." They should have stuck to the original version. 

*And just what is a tuna band? It's a musical group made up of university students, popular throughout Spain and Portugal, as well as Holland and Central and South America. A Tuno is a member of a University Tuna, or may also be called a Sopista, which is an ancient version of the tuno.  In the old times (medieval days) the Sopistas would use their musical talents to entertain people for soup (hence the name SOPistas: soup = sopa in Spanish) and money. They would also play their music under the windows of the ladies they wished to court. The Sopistas were poor students that with their music, friendly personality and craftiness scored cheap places to stay and eat; the money they earned went toward paying for their studies. I'm happy to say I've been serenaded by tuna bands in Salamanca, Cáceres and now, Guimarães! Play on, Tunos!

Tuna Band, Salamanca 2008

After a long Sunday on the bus, we returned to Salamanca and finally to Valladolid. I'm so happy to have enjoyed a fantastic weekend (still on the Iberian Peninsula!) full of interesting culture and good food. Thank you, Portugal, for wow-ing me once again!