Globetrotting

Over the P4-P5 break (from 16 to 21 October), we went to Porto. I had not been in Portugal since I went there with my family when I was six years old, and I had heard a lot of good things, so I was quite excited about the trip. And even though we had quite some rain the first two days, all in all it was a very nice holiday.

Thanks to consultant hotel bonus points, we stayed in a fancy hotel, which was quite conveniently located 350 meters from one of Porto’s metro stops (on the day we arrived, it was pouring and we were completely soaked by the time we got to the hotel… the 350m felt much longer than they did on the next day without rain). We spent most of our time walking around the city, tasting Port Wine in Vila Nova de Gaia, which is on the opposite shore of the Duouro River and houses a multitude of Port wineries, and taking a boat tour on the river. The atmosphere and scenery of Porto is amazing. The old town features lots of narrow, steep streets, which in comparison to many other old towns in Europe seems much more alive with “regular” people and less of a museum. Also interesting is the contrast between renovated, beautifully decorated small shops and restaurants on one hand, and many abandoned or completely run-down buildings on the other hand (even though many of these buildings have a beautiful architecture, lots of Art Nouveau and regionally typical tile-covered facades).

The Port wineries in Vila Nova de Gaia were also really worth a visit. The first one we visited was Ramos Pinto, named after its founder and a relatively young Port winery (established in 1880). The tour through the museum comprised not only a visit to the cellars in which the Port is stored in barrels while aging, but also to a small museum which displayed especially lots of the marketing material used by the company especially in its early years – they had to be quite creative since they had to prove themselves against the established Port companies. The second Port winery we visited was an older one, so the tour was less about interesting marketing and more about the history and theory of Port wine. After our visit to the second winery, we took a boat tour on river Duoro, which took us upstream a bit and then down the river to where it enters the Atlantic ocean. When we reached the ocean, the sun was just setting – a very beautiful sight!

Another highlight of the visit was the food – we had quite some interesting dishes. Most notable was the local sandwich specialty – one could call it the mother of all meat sandwiches: The Francesinha. It is basically different types of bacon, ham, sausage and beef between two buns, covered with lots of cheese and swimming in beer gravy… Delicious, but certainly not something to be eaten every day! The next day, we opted for vegetarian food instead to counterbalance all the grease in our blood…

Some pictures follow.