The above is a photo of the praca de republica with its fountain which dates from the 16th century. The church of the Santa casa da misericordia is on the left and just behind the fountain is the town hall which dates from the same period.
We had arrived just before weekend, and just after a fiesta, the town however was very busy and noisy, a market was being held and several musical groups were competing for dominance ( the drummers won )
Please click the link below.
Drummers
We slipped away to a quiet square and settled down for lunch.
Lynne seems to have developed a taste for squid, getting more spanish every day!
It was delightful to wander around, coming across traditional dress didnt seem to be unusual or indeed out of the ordinary in any way. The building in the background in the above photo is actually a museum of traditional dress.
I had always had an ambiguous attitude to graffitti in Spain, however as we negotiated a subway I was surprised and delighted to discover a very pro-active approach in Portugal which was to pre-graffitti the walls of the subway. Brilliant! Even the subject matter was appropriate to ourselves as Lynne pointed out.....
After our exploration of churches we made our way back through the town, it is surprisingly difficult to avoid the railway which effectively divides the town in two, the station which is directly below a big shopping centre is a handsome building in its own way and is one of the few crossing points of the railway line.
The old town is simply delightful, being full of quirky little shops and restaurants which reminded us of our brief stay in Porto last winter. Strange little differences from Spain became apparent, the reappearance of postcards, very many jewellery shops ( lots of gold ) the language obviously, however we find it easier to read Portugese than to hear it, our ears are not yet attuned to the many sshh sounds.
Later after eating on board we walked along the river and came across a cultural event. We initially found it a little confusing we recognised Verdi opera beginning with la traviata which was followed by a few arias from Aida, and what was the fellow in the box all about? There was a beautiful lady narrating and as the opratic sections were in Italian and she was obviously telling the story in Portugese it began to make sense.
It turned out thst the guy in the box was Verdi and his ex-wife was the narrator. However it was very well done and was very entertaining.
We then needed to walk all of 10 metres to watch a kind of water ballet with men on waterjets wearing multi coloured light suits, with fireworks!
Its impossible to explain so I will try and post some video. Please click below link.
Watersports
So ended our first full day in Viana do Castelo. What a great town.
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