Porto

Or arrival in Porto yesterday tested our driving and navigating skills on narrow, steep  one-way streets, but with Jen behind the wheel we managed to check in to our hotel and park the car in a tight underground garage! After a complimentary glass of port at our hotel, we enjoyed beers at one of the 10 or so bars we can see from the hotel!

Port at the Hotel Infante Sagres...

...followed immediately by beer at Café Candelabro

We had dinner at Churrasqueira Moura, a small traditional Portuguese restautant along a side street that was full of local diners when we passed by. We had some delicious potato and cod croquettes that are a thing in the touristy areas in Lisbon (with the addition of cheese), but these were homemade and mostly cod mashed with a little potato. I had the bacalhau especial do dia which was a big hunk of cod cut right across the backbone covered in pan fried onions and surrounded by little pillow potato chips. Jen had a thinly cut steak with a fried egg on top and her dinner came with rice AND french fries.

We also had what we both agreed was our favorite Portuguese food called bifana today. It's a sandwich made from thin sliced pork that's been cooked in a juicy spicy sauce and is served on a puffy Portuguese roll that soaks up all the delicious juices.  We had read that Conga was the best place to have it and to get there early because the lines get really long. They were so good we split a second one, and also had amazing caldo verde soup (another classic Portuguese dish).

On to sweets- one thing that's the same in both Lisbon and Porto is the number of bakery coffee shops. Thereson one on just about every block and patrons stand right at the counter above the pastries and drink their coffee and eat a snack just like they're sitting at a table. Every one sells pastéis de nata, a little custard tart that you eat at room temprature. I read (but can't verify) that this Portuguese treat was created at the Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon because egg whites were used to starch the white clothes and there were leftover egg yolks that needed to be used up. Sounds good to me!

Porto has a smaller old part of the city than Lisbon, and it also has many much older buildings because the destruction caused by the 1755 earthquake didn't extend this far north. It's also a lot more hilly and steep than Lisbon and I didn't think that was possible. There are so many winding narrow old roads that we didn't worry about following walking directions ot get to most of the places we visited.

The Douro riverfront is also beautiful and looks across to Vila Nova de Gaia which is where many of the city's port lodges (warehouses) are located.

Porto is also known for its tiles (azulejos) and there are several incredible buildings that show them off. The 

Church of Saint Ildefonso

São Bento Train Station

Igreja do Carmo

 

We've visited a lot of historic churches since arriving in Portugal, but I think the most amazing one has to be the Monument Church Of St Francis (Igreja Monumento de São Francisco). The original construction was begun in 1245, finished in 1410, and then in the 17th century the cathedral was renovated to a high baroque style. There area catacombs where former priests and monks are buried (in crypts but also in large chambers where thousands of bones are all loose in piles- no photos of those but we saw them!)  

The cathedral itself is beyond description and pictures can't capture the beauty, intricate detail of all the gilded woodwork, or scale but I'm posting some anyway!