Day 2 - Porto. In the morning I'm again impressed by how nice and clean the hotel is. When I come down for the included continental breakfast, there is only one setting on the table. Am I the only guest? Yes, and what's more - I'm the very first! The hotel literally just opened after several years of construction. I spend some time talking to Ivo, who is a part owner and the manager. He is very helpful with stuggestions and clearly passionate about the hotel and what his vision for it is. I decide to stay another night.
The fish sculpture below was created by a local artist from plastic trash picked up on the beach. Clean up the environment, create art, and make a thought-provoking statement all at the same time.
Today is Sunday, and Ivo tells me that street parking is free. So I move the car out of the garage and on to the street. It is relatively early in the morning and there are plenty of open spots. In general, as I later continue to observe, both in Portugal and Spain it pays to be early.
Linda has some commitments in the morning so I'm meeting her near city center later in the day. I have a few hours to explore on my own in the meantime. First, a walk on the beach.
The surf here appears to be 3-8' and there are lots of surfers in the water. I take a few pix then google the bus I should take to get into the city. Route 500 is a double decker, and I score the top front seat. The rounte follows the coast and then the river bank, so this is like a tour bus basically.
Having plenty of time and the weather being nice (about 50F, sunny, very light breeze), I get off the bus a dozen stops early and continue on foot.
More abandoned buildings. Linda later tells me this is at least in part due to Portugal's inheritance laws which make it exceedingly difficult to do anything with a building after its owner passes, unless there is a very clear will. So they just sit and deteriorate.
The red building below seems to be an official facility of some kind, but it is also deteriorating. While Portugal appears to be a very cool place to live overall, guess no paradise is without its share of trouble. Of course part of my travel agenda is to discover and learn how such things work, and so I do.
Porto city center is built on steep hills and cliffs on the banks of the river (the opposite bank is technically a separate city, Gaia). I find a steep narrow street and head uphill. Today will be good exercise.
There is a fascinating mix of architecture, old and new, well maintained and abandoned, ancient walls and graffiti, with occasionally really cool street art.
There is a cool cathedral/museum near where I'm meeting Linda, so I decide to exlore it a bit.
Then up the hill to meet Linda, who graciously agreed to be my tour guide for the afternoon. We last saw each other about 40 years ago, and didn't interact much - she was my sister's friend, I was about 4 years older which at that time could have just as well been a generation apart. Since then she has traveled the world extensively and has now been living in Porto for some time. It is fascinating to meet in a different part of the world four decades later and compare live experiences. The world is very different too, of course. Linda is enthusiastic about the city and its people. I'm grateful to have such knowledgeable local guidance - would have missed many things otherwise.
One such thing is a really cool bookstore - while it is a fairly famous tourist attraction, I normally stay away from those and there is a long line to get in which also would have prevented me from entering. But Linda has a membership which lets us skip the line and walk right in. Would be cool to see the place when it's not crowded, but I still manage to appreciate it and get a few pix too.
We continue the walk up, down, and across hills.
Along the way there are two churches side by side. Apparently having churches immediately adjacent was illegal in some way, so there was a very narrow vertical house built between them. Just to say that each church is adjacent to the house, not the other church.
The house is hidden from the street and can only be accessed through the churches. It is very vertical, consisting primarily of stairs connecting a stack of small rooms with no windows. I didn't see anything resembling a bathroom in all of this, but perhaps it's at the very top or bottom, off limits to the public? Or maybe the house was never really meant to be occupied and is literally just a church separator.
After climbing some stairs there is a spot where you can go behind the Jesus statue and look over its shoulder into the church. Kind of odd but interesting.
The walk continues through the city, eventually crossing the bridge to the Gaia side.
Along the way there is a restaurant where a guy with a bird of prey (hawk, falcon?) is there to keep pigeons away. Cool form of pest control.
Another interesting landmark is a McDonalds in what used to be a historic cafe. It was only allowed to become McD's if the original exterior and interior were kept largely unaltered.
Streets are busy, as is the train station. The weather is pretty much perfect for walking the steep hills - not too hot, not too windy.
The bridge over the river has a bunch of vendors near it, including one selling fresh roasted chestnuts. I buy a bag and eat a few, as this reminds me of time in Italy on the way to the US in 1980. It was winter in Rome and we used to buy chestnuts from street vendors there as we walked around.
On the Gaia side we take the cable car down to the port tasting areas.
There is a statue/artwork called 'Half Rabbit' by Portugese artist Bordallo II. It is visible from the cable car and we later check it out from street level a well. It is made of trash.
A full day and I'm tired. Tomorrow is a major bucket list item - watching the big waves at Nazare. Forecast shows waves picking up, being about 15' and picking up to 18'+ later. I invite Linda to come along. She has commitments in the morning but is free the rest of the day, so we agree I would pick her up around 11am. She buys a bus ticket back to Porto. I take the Metro to the hotel. It is underground in the city center but runs in the surface outside. The line goes directly in front of the hotel but the nearest stop is about five blocks away.
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