Brittany's Third Free Weekend: Porto, Portugal

I wasn't really sure what to expect from Porto, but I was really excited to experience the southern Portuguese culture. Upon arriving we took the metro into the city center to find our hostel. We stayed at Yes! Porto hostel which was the best hostel I have ever stayed in and was a mere 15 euro per night (breakfast included ;). The next order of business was food since it was already early evening and we had been traveling all day. Our first meal was a popular sandwich called the, Francesinha. It's made with bread, wet-cured ham, linguiça, fresh sausage like chipolata, steak or roast meat and covered with molten cheese and a hot thick tomato and beer sauce served with french fries. It was definitely not a light meal but it was unique and tasty. Then we explored the area near our hostel and did a little shopping. Down the street from our hostel is the most interesting bookstore in the world, Lello. We stumbled upon it and it is extremely beautiful.

Lello Bookstore

That evening we decided to walk down by the water to see everything all lit up at night. The bridge in the picture was actually built by Gustav Eiffel, the same guy that built the Eiffel Tower. The bridge actually connects two different cities, Porto and Gaia. Until the 19th century they weren't able to build a bridge because of the deep and fast moving water so the two cities developed different cultures until that time. We had a drink out one of the bars near the water and tried a Latin favorite, the Caipirinha. It's actually Brazil's national drink and Portugal and Brazil have always had close ties. It was super tasty! We headed to bed at a decent hour to get up for breakfast the next morning.

Santa Clara Church

The hostel offered a free tour at 10:30 after breakfast so we got basically a private 2 hour tour of the city. One of the first stops on the tour was the Majestic Cafe. J.K. Rowling actually wrote some of the first Harry Potter book at this Cafe when she lived in Porto. I love Harry Potter so I was so excited to hear about that. We also saw the main market place that had everything from fruits and vegetables to a hair dresser. Next, we visited the most beautiful churches I have ever been in. The construction works at the Church of Santa Clara were completed in 1457, and the edifice was built for the intended use of the Franciscan nuns (the order of Poor Clare). The order owned the church until the 19th century, when the last nun of the order died.We continued the tour and saw a lot of the little city including great views from the bridge during the day time.



Porto!

 



 

 




View of Porto from Gaia.

We went to amazing authentic Portuguese tapas restaurant our last night in Porto. We sat down at the table and you just keep getting small plates brought out to you until you can't eat any more. It was such an amazing experience and the food was fantastic. The name of it was Casa de St. Antonio and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Porto. The four of us that ate dinner had 6 plates of tapas and 2 liters of Sangria between us and our meal was only 46 euro! Porto was  definitely the most inexpensive place I've ever been in Europe and everything was so worth the money we spent!



Casa de St. Antonio



Our last day in Porto we had to do a Port tasting! All of the Port cellars are actually located in Gaia because the sun shines directly on Porto which is not ideal conditions for the wine. We went to Graham's cellars and had a wonderful tasting. We tried the three different versions of Port: ruby, tawny, and white. I wasn't a huge fan of any of them, too sweet for me. But it was really neat to get to try them all and hear about how it's made. It would be wonderful to go on a cruise in the Douro region to see all of the vineyards. I loved Porto and would really love to go back and spend more time there and experience the Douro wine region.