Thursday, April 7, 2011

Porto: City of Hills, Birds, and Pastries


This past weekend I ventured to the other part of the Iberian Peninsula and visited Porto, Portugal with Cait and her friend Amanda. We flew out of Madrid with Ryanair, as the flight including return cost 27 Euros! Certainly too good of a deal to pass up! I arrived on Thursday afternoon and Thursday night we ventured into a more local area for some seafood. The restaurant we stumbled upon was called ‘King of the Sardines’, so of course we had to try their grilled sardines! We ordered a total feast and the waiter even looked at us funny, as if to say ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to finish that’. We feasted on the grilled sardines, bacalao (codfish), squid, potatoes, vinho verde, and bread, and all for 30 euro!
            Friday was absolutely gorgeous in Porto, with not a cloud in the sky and in the mid 20’s! We walked around the old part of the town by the river (Ribeira) and then crossed the bridge and made our way to some of the port wine cellars. We stopped at the Sandeman cellar, one of the most well known port wines, and took a tour of the cellars. The tour was extremely interesting and the wine tasting at the end was even better! After the wine tour, we took a nice little train ride around the city to see some more places.  Saturday wasn’t as nice of a day outside so we walked around a bit then did some shopping. We also stopped at a wonderful flea market where we found some sweet deals such as scarves for 25 cents! Saturday night we had Indian food, as we have been craving different types of food besides pinchos (although they are wonderful and delicious). Cait and I left early Sunday morning and Amanda left on Monday morning.
It was a wonderful trip and a wonderful city and it is actually named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. I would highly recommend visiting Porto any time you have the chance. Even though it was wonderful to get away and travel a bit, it was certainly wonderful to get back to Logroño and also to be able to understand the language. Even after taking a year of Portuguese at Miami, I still cannot speak the language and can barely understand as well. It certainly made me determined to get back into learning it and I am considering taking classes here in Logroño next year at the Language School. All in all it was a wonderful trip: great food, great views, and great friends!
Views of Ribeira

Port Wine Cellars 
I love the old buildings!

Porto!!

Sandeman Port Wine!

Yummmmmy!

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