Julie and I are not ones that feel like we have to do everything there is to do in a location whenever we go on holiday. We like to spend time relaxing and wandering around a city with a few touristy things sprinkled in. After a relaxing morning in our apartment (gotta love it when you have a Nespresso machine), we headed to Café Majestic for an early lunch (12:00pm is considered early for lunch). As their desserts looked amazing, we decided to split a francesinha (a local sandwich of two slices of bread, sausage, ham, cheese that is grilled and then covered with melted cheese and topped off with a tomato sauce) and fries. The size of the sandwich at the Majestic is not too large as some we saw in photos were huge but splitting it today was perfect. For dessert, Julie had the ice cream and I had the chocolate cake which was topped with a rose petal.
The Majestic is listed as one of the top 10 most beautiful cafes in the world and it is easy to see why. You do feel like you are taken back in time to 1921 when the café opened. The benches and chairs have leather cushions and the beautiful wooden tables have marble tops. The servers all wear uniforms reminiscent of the 1920’s.
The Majestic is on Rua da Santa Clarita which is a pedestrian only street so we wandered around a bit before making out way towards Lello & Irmão bookstore. Supposedly it is a beautiful bookstore and where JK Rowling was inspired for the Harry Potter store. While we knew we would have to buy a ticket to get in the store (ticket price is applied to any purchase you make), we did not know you had to check in and check any personal belongings. The later was just a bit too much and it was a bit chaotic in the check room so we opted to not visit.
Part of our hop-on/hop-off ticket included a cruise on the Douro in Porto to see the 6 bridges so we started making out way down to the river. En route, we stopped at the Clérigos Church.
I mentioned how unseasonable warm it is in Porto this week didn’t I? Today was no exception so we decided to save ourselves and took the hop-on/hop-off down to the river. The cruise was okay but not something I would do if it wasn’t included as again there is very little narration but it was nice to escape the heat in the comfort of the private party area (we were the only two people in there as we asked and they said we could enter otherwise we would have been sitting in the baking sun. Julie and I are too delicate of little petals to bake in the sun).
After the cruise, we headed up back up a little hill (at this point we are becoming somewhat immune to the hills) to have a little gelato before checking out a little craft fair we saw earlier in the day. Fun crafts and good music filled the praça where a statue of Henry the Navigator stands pointing west.
The final thing we wanted to do today was go into São Francis Church. What seemed like a relatively easy endeavor turned out to be quiet the odyssey as we could see the church but we just couldn’t see to get to it. Finally we had success and arrived at the entrance. We were a bit disappointed that after paying a decent fee to get in they said “no photos”. I went into stealth mode and did manage to take some pictures.
For a last night in Porto, we had dinner with my friend, Marcella. I met Marcella and her family in 2010 when I assisted them in relocating to Charleston from Brazil due to her father’s work. When I first met Marcella, she was a shy girl that did not speak English. Today, she is a smart, beautiful and funny young lady that speaks very good English ( as well as Spanish and of course Portuguese) and is living in Porto going to university while her parents are now living in Germany for her father’s work. She is in her final year where she is studying Tourism Management and did an internship at one of the wine caves in Gaia. For dinner we went to O Buraco on Rua do Bolhao, another recommendation of Sergio. I think there was one other table of folks not from Porto in the restaurant, our kind of place. We told Marcella what we wanted and she placed the order as well as she selected a very nice Vihno Verde for our meal. Throughout dinner, she told us all about living in Porto and about the wine business. I just kept marveling at how much she has blossomed since coming to Porto and how mature she is…what happened to the teenager I met 8 years ago?!
After dinner, Marcella showed us around the neighborhood a little before taking us over the river to Gaia to Porto Cruz where she did her internship. Porto Cruz has a wonderful rooftop bar with spectacular views of the city. What a great way to end our time in Porto!
Our intention today was to take it easy but as it turns out, we walked 10,223 steps and climbed 14 flights of stairs...too bad our Apple Health doesn’t track the inclines as we did A LOT of inclines today. It is now time for some serious rest and to be glad we will spend 2.5 hours on a train tomorrow as we head to Lisbon.
Boa noite!
No comments:
Post a Comment