The biggest question on my mind right now is why my parents didn’t birth and raise me in Portugal. The greatest part of traveling for me is falling in love with each new place I visit, but I think Portugal may have just taken the cake. Which will explain why this blog entry is so long, because I need to be able to read it in a year from now and remember every single detail.
Katie, Hannah and I took a midnight bus to Madrid on Wednesday night to fly to Porto, the second largest city in Portugal. It didn’t even hit me until we got off the metro in Porto that there was going to be a language barrier on this trip, since I’ve only traveled to English or Spanish speaking countries for the last three years. Luckily my friend Hannah looked up some simple phrases before we left, such as “Thank you” and “Do you speak English or Spanish?” Most of our encounters with people involved lots of pointing and gesturing, or just standing there awkwardly until people attempted English with us.
It was raining lightly when we arrived, which only enhanced the amazing city of Porto. It is one of the most third-world looking cities I have seen so far in Europe, with decaying buildings interspersed with beautiful colored and tiled apartments and shops. There are many apartments that are simply abandoned, with broken windows and lopsided stories. Why was this so beautiful, you ask? There is something completely eerie and fantastic about vibrant homes and crumbling shacks sharing the same building, and the city felt almost like a populated ghost town. The gray clouds enhanced the creepy feeling, and I could picture Portugal in the 15th century, in all its glory. I’m realizing this hardly makes sense, so here’s some pictures.
Lots of colorful buildings....
....but these ones has seen better days.
After walking around and seeing some beautiful old churches and buildings, we headed down to the river. The sun broke out at this point and it was unreal. The river is lined with buildings of every color, and it looked like a postcard (which it actually is—the one I bought, in fact.) We crossed the river on one of Porto’s six bridges, because on the other side there are at least ten wine cellars. Porto is famous for its Port Wine, and most of these places give free tastings! So we cellar-hopped until we were nice and tipsy, which didn’t take long since Port wine is twice as alcoholic as table wine. The next day we took a boat ride up and down the river, saw more gorgeous old buildings, found the most amazing pastry shop for lunch (Portugal is cheaper and more delicious than Spain), and basically wandered all over the city. We then had an afternoon drink (just juice this time!) on a glass-encased terrace that overlooked the whole city.
In the morning we took a train to Lisbon, stopping briefly in a town called Aveiro, which is supposed to be the “Venice of Portugal” but that's a bit of a long-shot. It was a fine town but we should have gone straight down to Lisbon, since I could spend a lifetime in that city and never get bored. Now for Lisbon's entry...prepare for a novel....
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