Porto, eu te desejo

This photo basically sums up how I feel about Portugal.

It's wonderful. People get annoyed by how much Andrea and I talk about loving Portugal. You'll understand when you see for yourself!

So we had another long weekend in Madrid... have I mentioned how much Spaniards love long weekends? Well they kind of drove it home with this one- we had a 6-DAY WEEKEND. Jealous?

My routine for when these puentes pop up is to start punching dates into Ryanair's website to see where I can get the most bang for my buck. This time it was a city that has been on my list for months: Porto, Portugal- current home of Port Wine and former home of my modern-day heroine, J.K. Rowling. 

Porto Town Hall

After settling into our wonderful hostel [Sky Hostel in Porto- highly recommend it!], Andrea and I went for a walk to show ourselves a bit of the city.  We grabbed lunch first- the food here is so fresh and cheap! We had delicious fried fish, beans and rice, thinly sliced fried potatoes, a bit of salad, and Superbock (Portuguese beer) all for around 6€. Quite a bargain.

Then we walked it off to the Town Hall on Avenida dos Aliados, the big square in the center of town.  

London Time Machine

Avenida dos Aliados

From there, we navigated to a particularly unique Porto landmark- an old bookstore called Livraria Lello e Irmao. Other than the building itself, it's a completely non peculiar bookstore going along with business as usual. It's famous for good reason, though. It's over 100 years old and the stunningly ornate interior is just a Harry Potter reference waiting to happen. For me, the first glance triggered memories of an imaginary Harry Potter world... and little did I know, J.K. Rowling spent a few years in Porto as a teacher of English (just like me!) while writing HP on the side. She most certainly drew some Hogwarts inspiration from this Porto gem... as well as from the famous Majestic Café, which we visited later.

Igreja dos Clérigos

This church is a striking example of old Baroque architecture in Porto. I can't seem to get used to coming across buildings of this stature when walking down the streets in Europe... they seem to be just a dime a dozen in this land o' aesthetic glory.

O Principezinho

Along with basically everything else being perfect, there was also a great street art scene in Porto- we had so much fun wandering up and down the hilly streets of the city discovering it's secrets, stories, nooks, and crannies.

That night, we decided to go on a crazy pub crawl with the friends we made at our hostel- good life decision. 

The night kicked off at a Port Wine tasting. If you ask me, that it's called wine is a misnomer. With 18-20% alcohol content, it's liquor... and let's just say it doesn't go down as smooth as a glass of White Zinf. There's a special technique they taught us for making the consuming-this-stuff process easier: swirl it around in your mouth and quickly inhale a bit of air to bring out the sweetness. Maybe that's an obvious wine-drinking concept for all my wine-o friends out there but it was a new one for me!

TSHIRT TSHIRT

We chugged along on the pub crawl to various bars and discos until the wee hours of the morning... we had a legendary night with our new Spanish, Irish, and Portuguese friends!

Naturally, one of the Irish girls had green paint in her purse in case she felt the insatiable desire to finger-paint 3-leaf clovers. Luckily, there were so many faces in the vicinity desperately awaiting a touch of Irish flair! 

Donny and Danny

     

Miraculously, Andrea and I peeled ourselves out of bed the next day with enough energy to make a beach adventure!  Foz do Douro was a lovely strip of beach where one could find everything from adventurous surfers to your average beach-lounger like 

<---- this guy .

...Which brings us once again to my segment called: 

Can you believe this view?!

We decided to participate in some more hostel-organized activities on Day 3 with a bright and early walking tour! Before heading toward the Ribeira (Riverside), we stopped by several beautiful Portuguese monuments, many of which were decked out in the traditional azulejos- those lovely blue tiles that can be found all over in Portugal.

Igreja dos Carmelitas

Torre dos Clérigos

Estação São Bento

    This photo was taken on the Ponte Luís I overlooking Rio Douro. This bridge was designed by Théophile Seyrig, a partner of  Gustave Eiffel, hence it looks like a bridge-version of Eiffel's tower.

Here are a few more shots from the walking tour as we sauntered down the hills and winding streets of La Ribeira to the water. 

Of course, we shopped our way through the Ribeira Market before heading back toward the hostel. 

Side note: we stopped at a bakery (obviously) and I got the most delicious pastel de nata that I've ever had. Pasteis de nata are those little creme pastries I loved in Lisbon that are featured all over Portugal. The one I had that day was surprisingly filled with the warm, chocolate, brownie-batter nectar of the gods. It changed my life and I'm pretty sure it could solve the problems of the world if mass-distributed. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo because by the time I realized that it was no ordinary pastry,
I was too busy enjoying every second
of it to reach for my camera.

My Portuguese boyfriend

That night, F.C. Porto won the football league of Portugal and it was definitely cause for celebration. People flooded the streets to shout, sing, drink, and shake people's cars... so that was different. 

Good news- Andrea and I were on local Porto TV crashing someone's street-side interview! How many people can say they've done that?

Hostel rooftop

Out on the town... again!

For our last day, Andrea and I enjoyed another Portuguese meal (I ate fried octopus, kind of by accident!) and then went exploring a part of Porto we had yet to see. The first thing we noticed were all the beautiful old doors! I have, as you can imagine, dozens of photos of the old buildings but here are a select few that made the cut:

A street-artistic take on the Galo de Portugal [Rooster]- the symbol of Portugal

The last stop on our Porto sight-seeing adventure was the Majestic Café where we could once again feel that Harry Potter vibe. Turns out, J.K. Rowling spent time in this café during her years in Porto jotting down ideas for what would later become the most famous phenomenon in the history of children's literature. 

 

No Portuguese café visit would be complete without a couple pasteis de nata. 

A perfect ending to a perfect trip, indeed.