Porto

We handed a set of keys and a Christmas present for the marina staff to Bea and caught the ferry to Vigo. A quick taxi ride ( a bargain at just over 5 euros ) and we were having a coffee waiting for a bus to Porto (or Oporto ) in Portugal. The weather was a bit overcast but was forecast to cheer up over the weekend. We had rented an apartment in the old quarter and another equally cheaptaxi ride saw us deposited outside the small alley leading to the front door, this shares a courtyard with a small bar and restaurant  , the landlady was leaning out of an upper storey window with a card of welcome. I must admit without the taxi driver and his GPS we would probably never have found it!

The welcome continued inside  as we were shown around in Portuguese, A small Christmas tree was sat among some cake, sweets and biscuits there was also some food (enough for lunch ) in the fridge.

Afer settling in we decided to have a quick look around the immediate area, it was a good 7 degrees colder than Cangas so we got bundled up a bit. It was the first time in ages that Lynne complained of the cold!

 Just outside our courtyard was a very interesting shop selling antiques/junk. We were to discover that Porto was full of interesting and quirky shops.

We wandered up the hill looking for the Metro station, this turned out to be a few hundred metres away, which was good news for our airport transfer on Tuesday. we continued on to the railway station to discover the source of several pictures in our apartment, they were copies of originals on the tiled interior of the entrance hall.

The pictures depict various scenes from Porto's rich history.

A familiar thing we seemed to keep coming across were English phone boxes, no real idea why but the Portuguese must have bought a job lot, minus the phones!

We were on the north side of the Douro river and the main square nearby was also home to the town hall.

It was obvious that various events and happenings had been planned, the square was decorated however our eyes were constantly distracted by the fantastic buildings. Porto has what could be described as more than its fair share of these!

In comparison to Cangas Porto was beginning to feel very Christmassy, as dusk descended and the lights came on in the Praca de Liberdade, the rather odd looking metal Christmas tree came alive.

Hopefully the following two pictures give some impression. Really quite effective...

We had a good look around and drifted down to the riverfront, the famous Cais de Ribeira. This is the place to look across the river tp the famous Port wine exporters Sandemans, Taylors etc. On a rather chilly evening we sat in a riverside cafe and pondered the Ponte de Luis and the impressive building of the Serra do Pilar.

Lynne was still feeling the cold so we wandered back to our apartment.

Hopefully the forecast sun would return in the morning and we could explore this fascinating city some more.