EUROPE BLOG April 21st, 2023 - PORTO

4/21/23- It looks like we brought the rain with us as it’s been falling all morning. We take this time to sleep in and go over some more logistics of the rest of our trip (which will be awesome by the way). It’s not until 4pm that we venture out, with umbrellas in hand, to check out a few things.

First up was food as we step inside a local restaurant for a ham hamburger. You read that correct, it was a burger with ham added on top. Before the burger came out, they brought us our tart custard pastries along with a tall glass of beer, which we didn’t order. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to come with the burger but bank error in our favor.

After lunch, we venture out into the rain. There’s a bookstore in Porto that inspired JK Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, and is supposed to be one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. Of course we wouldn’t know because even in the rain there’s a long line outside waiting to get in. If there are tons of people waiting then we already know that inside is a madhouse, so we skip it and continue on.

Not even a block down we see the church, Igreja do Carmo, which is very interesting as there’s two churches built into each other with a four story secret house wedged in between. It’s been said that the narrow house was used to make sure the two churches didn’t share a common wall, but the actual history is up for debate. The cost is 4.50 Euros each to view the rooms and well worth it to get out of the rain for a spell. 

We’re fortunate to be able to view the entire place as toward the end they were locking the doors, disallowing anyone else to roam around. Upon exiting, we see the rain has completely stopped and the sun has come back out to play. Wow, what a drastic change from an hour ago.

Being in Porto, rain or shine, we know of at least one activity we can always do and that’s wine tasting. More specifically, Port wine tasting. After all, this is the birth place of Port wine dating back to around 1675, and we’re ready for some 20% alcohol.

We locate a wine store, Touriga, not far away and do a Port tasting. What a great experience to have 6 different Port wines for only 15 Euros total, we definitely left with a bottle. Down the road we go to another wine bar, order their Port tasting and a meat/cheese platter to boot. It was a perfect ending to a rest day where we didn’t originally think we’d do much.

Honorable mention for today: The side streets are so compacted with cars that I'm amazed how buses make their way through.