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Our mornings have fallen into a routine of sipping early morning espresso in our bathrobes on the balcony, before joining the girls for a delicious breakfast. Today, we had a lovely riverboat tour of the 6 Bridges planned. As usual, we made our way through the winding steep streets that in some spots have beautiful flowers growing right out of the marble.
Once we got to the waterfront, we realized there were several different boat tour vendors. Nicola was able to find the right place where we submitted our voucher for our tour. We also realized this morning that we did not have an actual time scheduled but we needed to request a time upon submitting our voucher. It was just about 10:30 am and there were spots on that boat but not very good seats. So the guy suggested we take the first slots on the 11 am boat. The tour ran every half hour. We had to wait on the waterfront for our designated time. It was pretty warm that day and standing in the warm sun made us pretty hot and sticky. But we were well equipt with hats and visors.
While we waited there was a blond woman holding a microphone in a flowing white dress with a news photographer. I was wondering what the news story was that they were covering. The woman approached me and asked me if she could ask me a question. I said “Sure.” She wanted to know if this was my first time in Porto and what I thought of it. I said, “This is my first time in Portugal and it is so beautiful and the people are so warm and welcoming. I feel so lucky to have been able to experience this.” She thanked me and then turned to Katie…Katie said something very similar.
After she walked away, I went up to her and asked if I could take a picture of them and they said “Sure.” I went away from that assuming what we recorded would not make the cut for the news piece they were doing.
Side note: The following morning the hotel concierge told us as we walked through the lobby "I saw you on TV last night!" So we did actually make the news!
We boarded the boat at 11 am and got spots on the side benches near the water. The Douro River has been used for centuries to transport wine from all the vineyards upriver to Porto where it has been shipped around the world. From the boat were able to see the red-roofed buildings of the Ribeira and Vila Nova de Gaia, the city on the opposite side of the river of Porto.
There were lots of people on the boat but two people stood out [figuratively and literally]. They were two older Italian women that were trying their best to look younger. They were obviously sisters and they loved to have their pictures taken. They kept posing at the front of the boat (obstructing other peoples’ view) and posing with a head tilt and a big smile. It was pretty irritating.
After the boat ride we decide to go up the hill to see Palacio da Bolsa, which is the famous Porto building that is the stock exchange. Again we had to buy tickets and could not get in until 1:30 pm so we went across the street to a small pizzeria called Pimms and had lunch. We enjoyed an oven-roasted pizza and they had a lovely hot sauce to sprinkle on it. Christine and I enjoyed a white sangria while the girls had Pimms, a British liquor with lots of fruit - kiwi, grapes, oranges, etc and soda like 7 UP.
The Palácio da Bolsa is located near the St Francis Church of Porto and was once part of the St Francis Convent, founded in the 13th century. In 1832, during the Liberal Wars, a fire destroyed the cloisters of the convent, sparing the church. In 1841, the convent ruins were donated to the merchants of the city, who decided to use the spot to build the seat of the Commercial Association, stock exchange. It is located in the Infante D. Henrique Square in the historical center of Porto, and a designated World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The interior of the building was pretty amazing.
After our tour, we walked back up the hill so we could walk across the bridge to Vila Nova de Gaia, the town on the other side of the river. It is so beautiful from up there!
We took a gondola from the top to the waterfront. It was a short 5 minute ride and it was nice that we were the only ones in our gondola. There were a lot of vendors selling wares and tourists all along the waterfront. We decided to have another lunch at a waterfront cafe and had the traditional Portuguese francesinha sandwich. It is made with layers of toasted bread and assorted hot meats such as roast, steak, wet-cured ham, linguiça, or chipolata over which sliced cheese is melted by ladling a near-boiling tomato-and-beer sauce called molho de francesinha. It is typically served with french fries. It was very filling so I am very glad Katie and I split one.
We really wanted to try Port since none of us had ever tried it. It was challenging to find a place that had some shade and it was incredibly warm. We finally found a place on the waterfront where we had a flight of 4 ports that were paired with chocolate. It was interesting because I didn't realize that Port came in whites and roses. I just always assumed it was red and I assumed it would be sweet. Some of these were very sweet and adding chocolate made everything sweeter. Because of that, I was not able to drink all of them but only took a taste. I think the best one was the final red on the far right in the photo. It wasn't too sweet
After all that we were pretty exhausted and hot! This really had been the warmest day so far. We decided to take an Uber back to the hotel. Katie made the arrangements and we were pretty excited to see that our driver had a Telsa. After all that walking seeing the city from a driver's perspective was interesting and I was horrified as tourists kept walking in front of the car! Our driver was very patient and did a great job of navigating them!
The next morning we need to leave bright and early. So we took the evening to rest at the hotel and got ready for our next destination which was an hour inland into the Douro Valley.