Day 25 - Porto
Wow wow wow! What a day in Porto. A long and hot day, and we were all very tired at the end of it after waiting an hour for the bus to take us back to the caravan park, but Porto was just beautiful, so picturesque - a postcard view with every turn of the head.
Another lazy start, but we were waiting for the bus at the beach by 10:50am and it was off into Porto. The bus ride in was (shall we say) entertaining. It was a slightly shorter bus than your usual suburban bus, but I think just as wide. For the first 15 minutes from the beach, we zig zagged through tight suburban streets and in some places we felt like the bus was millimetres from the walls of houses abutting the street. As one stage - with no space to swerve, a car stuck its nose out of a side street and was almost collected before quickly pulling back. Another thing we were intrigued by was a giant strawberry sculpture sitting in the middle of a roundabout amongst the back streets. We're not sure what this obscure reference was sitting in a neighbourhood street.
Eventually we made it out onto main roads, and in another 10 minutes or so, across one of the many high bridges over the Rio Douro, and we were in downtown Porto. The bus terminus - in the medieval Ribeira district (old town), was handily located only a short walk from the banks of the river, where we chose to start our exploring. From anywhere in Ribeira it is downhill to the river, and the kids had a great time sliding down all the handrails in the tiny windy pedestrian streets/paths down to the river bank and the eye catching Ponte Luis I - the two level bridge designed by Gustave Eiffel.
At river level the Dom Luis I bridge is amazing to look at. The lower level is still used for vehicle traffic while on top (which we never got to) is for the light rail and pedestrian use only. Apparently, at 172m across, it is the largest bridge span of its kind. I think even more interesting though to the eye is the height of the bridge at 45m and the distance between the upper and lower decks.
Across the river, we again decided on a sightseeing bus ticket as the best way to get around the spread out city of Porto. But really, we went for the sightseeing bus again because there was a package deal for a cruise along the river as well, for only an extra 3€ per per adult on top of the cruise only price. The kids really wanted to do the river cruise and the adult combo ticket cost us 18€ and the kids 9€ each.
After strolling around the beautiful river banks - with the picturesque city skyline as the backdrop, we tried to taste some port from the local wine makers, but our river cruise was calling. We boarded the boat in the full heat of the day and there wasn't any shade on the boat, so it wasn't the most pleasant of cruises for the kids - despite their initial enthusiasm for it. With the pre-recorded english audio commentary simply pointing out buildings and bridges along the way, we too were quickly pretty bored after an hour on board and in the end we were more focussed on trying to shield ourselves from the sun. One thing the kids did spot was a group of youngsters jumping from the lower deck of the Ponte Luis I into the river. Now even though it was from the lower deck/road of the bridge, it would still be a good 20m above the river. They gathered quite a crowd.
Boat cruise up and down the river done and it already being mid afternoon, we walked up hill through Ribeira (and more quaint narrow streets of an old town), in search of lunch. In one of the more quieter streets Kristie and I thought we saw what looked like a drug deal going down, but we just grabbed the kids hands and kept walking. With the girls tugging on their dad's heartstrings, we covertly led mum up hill in the direction of McDonalds. They deserved the reward and instead of convincing mum, we just happened upon McDonalds in a shopping centre, on what looked like the main pedestrian shopping mall.
After lunch, we jumped on the sightseeing tourist bus and did a lap of the city, with a drive-by of the city beach. It is a beautiful city with much more to see than we could possible walk - even with a few days to spare, but together with the river cruise we feel like saw most of the city, a few suburbs heading out to the beach, the city beach itself and the riverfront all the way out to the Atlantic ocean.
By the time we got off the bus, there wasn't too much daylight left. We walked back uphill through Ribeira, visiting the Igreja Monumento de São Francisco on the way, before deciding that we would head back to our local seaside suburb for dinner by the beach. We eventually found the bus station and despite buses supposedly to running every 1/2 hour, we seemed to wait over an hour for the route 15 bus. Back through the same very narrow windy streets we safely reached the beach, despite thinking that the bus was rubbing the walls of buildings along the way was we passed.
Once back at the beach, we struggled to find a restaurant to get some dinner. The one place on the beach that we did find open and suitable for the family, was also hosting an event for the Porto game in the UEFA cup, and they politely told us that they would have space until after the game. The UEFA Cup game also explained why we had seen so many local walking around all day in what we thought were Portuguese football jerseys. In one of the public plaza's there was quite a crowd drinking in the the streets.
Exhausting all options for dinner, we ended up with take away pizza back at the camper van, from what I am sure was the Portuguese equivalent of Pizza Hut. It was pretty good pizza considering, but we were disappointed to be missing out on some Portuguese food.
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