Just like in the States, weather forecasters here are not always correct – no rain today! It was actually another beautiful day in Porto. On our way to breakfast, we saw a note in the elevator about the Porto marathon and wondered how that would affect our daily activities. The impact turned out to be minimal. One bus route we were going to take was affected but other than that, it was just another great day in Porto.
We started off the day by walking over the Luis I bridge and taking the cable car down to the Douro river bank. It was just like a ski gondola – minus the snow! We figured we would just ride it down, walk around a little and ride it back up. However, we did find a couple of surprises at the bottom. Barb found an area where vendors were selling all kinds of things and picked up a couple of treasures. While she was occupied doing that, I walked across the way where we had seen a large gathering of motorcycles. There were motorcycles of all sizes and brands – even a couple of Harleys!! I’m not sure what the occasion was for the gathering but it was fun to watch all of the bikers and walk around.
We wanted to go see the Bolsa Palace which was formerly the stock market built by the city Commercial Association. The marathon disrupted the bus we would have taken to get there but is was close enough we decided to hoof it. When we went to buy tickets, we found out you had to buy a timed entry ticket associated with a tour guide. It was a few minutes after noon and the next tour was at 12:30 but was in French. The next English speaking tour wasn’t scheduled until 2:00 p.m. So, we bought a ticket for the French tour and at 12:30 we set off with a small army of French speaking tourists and our French speaking tour guide. The language was, in some respects, irrelevant because the building was magnificent and spoke its own language.
We were very close to the Douro River by then and decided to stroll along the river to find a place for lunch. There were tons of restaurants and we just chose one and rolled the dice. Barb had a salmon salad and I had a shrimp salad and they were both delicious. We broke our streak of mediocre lunches.
We hiked back up to our hotel and it was a climb but we managed. There are not a lot of overweight people here and it’s easy to see why. If you are walking around, there are a lot of ups, downs and stairs. It’s easy to get some exercise just going out to get a cup of coffee!
As we approached our hotel, we decided to get on another hop on/hop off bus and take a different route around the city. We saw parts of the city that were truly amazing and we were glad we made the choice to take the ride. There are a lot of expats who have chosen to live in Porto and it is easy to see why. It is a bit cooler and wetter here (normally) than what we are looking for but the place has certainly given us something to think about.
Tomorrow we head for Coimbra which will be the start of our journey southward. Coimbra is a university town about an hour and twenty minutes from here. Possibly the most challenging part of the day will be to retrieve our car, get it to the hotel to pack our luggage and find our way out of town! The adventure continues.