Travel Days are Always Hard!

Ola!

 

Travel days are always hard – I can’t even imagine them any other way!  We were up around 7 am this morning, and our job today was to get from Porto to Lisboa, drop the luggage off at our hotel for tonight, turn in our lovely rental car, get back to the hotel and prepare for tomorrow.  So …

 

We were packed up and out of the apartment by 9 am (running a bit earlier than I had expected) and picked up our little car with no problem … other than again not being able to get out of the garage, but fortunately our nice little man with whom we’ve been dealing came to our rescue yet again and let us out!  From there, quite literally, we could see our building – now I just had to get the car up on the curb so that we could put the cases in.  It took three trips, I think, to move everything into the vehicle from the apartment, but in just a few minutes we were heading south out of town toward Lisboa.  I have to say, once again, that there is absolutely NOTHING like making a major move out of a major city on a Sunday morning!  Usually there’s not much going on, very light traffic, etc., and things do move so much easier!  It was really great, and before we knew it, we were on our way!

 

One of the things that we did notice, however, was that we seemed to be surrounded by people and cars decked out in white and blue!  Those are the colors of the FC (Football Club) Porto, and apparently there is a really BIG game going on right now!  People everywhere – there were flags and scarves and banners hanging out of windows and car trunks all the way down the freeway!  (Just checked:  Porto just won the game 3-1, so I’m sure there will be many, many, many honking cars heading north once again this evening!). 

 

We found our way to the Tivoli Oriente hotel, where we are spending the night.  We’re on the 12^th floor, room 1209.  And, while the rooms are tiny, we at least have an expansive view of the river as well as the cable car system that goes along the waterfront to the Aquarium.  (We SO enjoyed the aquarium on our last visit; it was wonderful!)  We dropped off the luggage, and R checked us in, while I stayed out in the driveway.  Then, back into the car and the 3½ km drive to the rental-car return place.  Fortunately, the forever-thinking-ahead-Robert had bookmarked the return location in Emmy (our GPS), and we were able to find it very easily!  And boy, what a difference a day makes!  The place was absolutely jam packed with people going in and coming back – got the car handed over and whisked back to the airport to get a taxi.  Short wait in the taxi line, and we were then being transported back to the hotel.  This time, we were able to pick up our room keys (it was only about 1 pm) and get settled upstairs.  Then we headed downstairs in definite need of FOOD … and beverage, truth be told!

 

Of course, the restaurant was full, but we agreed to wait a bit at the bar – and fortunately, luck was with us, because we had just received our drinks – a glass of Prosecco for me and a glass of vinho verde for R, when our table was ready!  We started with a large order of truffle fries – excellent, but honestly not truffly at all, and we both ordered their chicken Caesar salad.  Took a while (they were very busy!) but the salads arrived – R’s with separate anchovies, mine without! – and they were truly fabulous … we both cleaned them up entirely; not a bite got away.  For dessert, R had their apple crumble, which looked and smelled really good, and I had his vanilla ice cream that came with it.  Then, as R headed back up to the room, I went across the street into the Vasco de Gama shopping center, which I remembered from three years ago – and found my same ice cream shop!  Managed to get a nice ice cream cone there, and made my way back to the hotel.  

 

Fabulous chicken Caesar salads!

R's apple crisp -- I got the ice cream!

Truffle French fries!  Yum!

Then, it was time for Covid testing…that would take an entire chapter, and it’s behind us now, so let’s say … it was interesting and more to the point, we are both negative!

 

Got to the airport hours early and glad we did!  Checked in (3 & 4 in line) and went through security.  Looked awful, with the line zig-zagging back and forth, back and forth in Disneyland style, but they somehow got us through in 20 minutes!  Incredible!  We then grabbed a quick breakfast, as R wanted to get to the gate.  SO GLAD we did, as the line through Customs was incredible!  Another zig-zag parade for 40 minutes at least, but finally we were at the gate.  Everything went fine on the flight, especially with the Premium Economy seating, and in a very short time we were in Philadelphia.  [Breaking the trip on the East Coast is much better than the long flights from Europe to the West Coast.]  This time (as we were about an hour early) we had plenty of time to get through Customs and re-check our bags (now traveling with 1 bottle of wine, 2 bottles of sherry, 2 bottles of sherry vinegar and a few odd liquid samples here and there).  Flight to Phoenix was bumpy but (relatively speaking) on time (our departure was slightly delayed while American Airlines rustled up the final two cabin attendants).  Bags came quickly in Phoenix, we picked up our rental car, and we were on our way home!  Arrived around 9:30 pm.  All well (thank you, Jay!!) and it is SO great to be home!  You know, it’s always so fun to go, but it is also enjoyable coming home!  So … everything unpacked and laundry going; everything put away, and we are out soon to return the rental car to the airport!  (It is a BRIGHT orange jeep – very discrete and stately…)

 

Thank you all for coming with us on our adventure!!  Love to all and hope to see everyone soon!

m

xxx

Our Last Day in Porto!

Ola from Porto!  

 

It’s our last day here.  Tomorrow we will pack up in the morning, rescue the car from its parking space, drive to our Airbnb, load up and head to Lisboa.  

 

R had work to do for Caltech last night, so not quite sure when he made it to bed.  Made for a quiet evening at any rate, after such a lovely, hot day.  Today was supposed to be another hot one, but some weather has moved in from the coast.  Woke this morning to a warm day but very overcast, which was just perfect for walking.  We went out about 9 down the street to Combi for croissants, coffee and hot chocolate.  From there we went to the parking garage to complete our parking arrangements.

 

As it turns out, the parking garage has a parking pass available for 72 hours.  That took us until this morning.  Then, we got a second pass, which is good for 3 days, but it’s €20 for the pass, and it’s €28 just for one day.  So, we will have been able to park the car for 5 days for a total of €40 – which, in downtown historic center Porto, is an excellent price.  

 

Okay, am I the only person who is confused by the signage?

Beautiful bridge built by Eiffel!

Two levels across the Douro

Monastery of Serra do Pilar

Lots of activity on the river this morning!

Me overlooking the Eiffel bridge

And then there were those steps

and more steps...

Finally got to the bottom!

Craft market

Our lovely restaurant on the river!

From the garage, we decided to head downhill towards the river and had a truly stunning walk.  There is an upper road as well as a lower road right along the edge of the river – and believe me, getting from one to the other is quite a challenge!  Lots and lots and lots of stairs – mostly with handrails, but some places not – and very, very uneven sidewalks.  People “of a certain age” really need to watch where they put their feet, as falls can happen in the one second you’re not paying attention.  We’ve been in the habit of pointing out curbs to each other for the past few years, but this was really critical.  A very difficult descent, but I am happy to report that we reached the river level safely.  There was a small crafts market which was fun to walk through, (and pick up a thing or two…) 

 

At this point, we were really in need of a sit down, and found Café do Cais, where we had stopped on our first visit to Porto.  We found a nice place for water and glasses of vinho verde wine (in fact, this was the place where I had my very first glass of fresh green wine!) and before we knew it, it was lunchtime, and the restaurant was starting to fill up.  We secured a lovely table under the canopy outside, and had a wonderful lunch!

 

R cooking his chorizo!

I ordered their appetizer portion of garlic shrimp, which was nothing short of amazing – I mean, seriously, garlic and shrimp?  How could that go wrong?!  I also got a caprese salad of fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and pesto; also some arugula, and a portion of French fries.  R had their fire-roasted chorizo (which he got to roast himself!) for a starter, and then their plate of tagliatelle with shrimp.  Also perfectly cooked and amazing!  For dessert, I had their chocolate cake and R had a glass of port.  We were both very, very happy!  The food here is so interesting and we are concocting recipes to try when we get home.  Shrimp and garlic in oil, the fire-roasted chorizo, maybe even cod fritters!

 

R's "dessert"

Liked mine better!

R's tagliatelle with shrimp

My garlic shrimp - yummy!

Caprese salad and other things!

The only difficulty about getting down to the river means that wherever you go, you’re walking up-hill!  Never as easy as going downhill, that’s for sure.  However, we were able to pop up on a major square, where we felt fairly certain that Uber could reach us.  And, it took a few minutes, but there he was, and in just a few more minutes, we were back at the flat, right around 2 pm.  

 

In for the night, I feel fairly certain, as we have had such a great meal, and really can’t do that three times per any day.  So, R down for a nap and I found the latest stage of the Giro d’Italia bike race on TV and did one small final load of wash.  Now just hoping it will actually dry by tomorrow!  R, who will do our big packing tomorrow night or Monday morning for the trip home always considers everything in the suitcase to be “dirty” and to be packed without regard to wrinkles or anything else, which drives me insane.  I’m figuring that if everything is actually CLEAN, I’ll have an easier time unpacking!  So we’ll see!

 

More tomorrow!

m

xxx

A beautiful day in Porto!

Ola!

 

Another perfectly wonderful day in Porto!  And for once, the weather channel was actually right!  It did get up to 80 degrees and sunny today – a first since we’ve been here!  (Yesterday, we left and returned to Porto and about 65 degrees!). Today is absolutely beautiful!  We have been SO lucky with weather, that’s for sure.  

 

Last night, after our Douro Valley trip, we found a local grocery store and stocked up on salami and cheese and ham – you know, the basic breakfast.  We started today about 7-ish, with a breakfast eaten “in” and I ran a load of wash, as it looked like a good day to wash blue jeans.  The drying rack fit perfectly into our little enclosed patio area, and most things were dry when we got back around 3-ish.

 

Decided that we would try to visit the Cockburn Cellars, very famous in England, and a very favorite of Lord Peter Wimsey.  (And, for the one and only time, it is pronounced: Co-burn).  Contacted them on-line to see about touring, and suggested 11 am this morning – and in less than an hour, we received word that we were a go for tour and tasting – at 11! 

 

Got an Uber pick-up outside our door and over across the Eiffel-build bridge into Gaia, directly on the other side of the Douro River from Porto.  To say that it was a riot of one-way streets is an understatement!  It was wild!  There was no way we could even follow on the phone map all the places we wound around and around, but Marco, our driver, was wonderful!  He talked about different Port lodges (as wineries are called) and made suggestions, and was all around a great guide!  Very, very helpful!  In about 15 minutes we suddenly arrived at Cockburn, and it was about 10:30 am.  Obviously, we were early, but they have an excellent wine museum that was very interesting.

 

Map of Cockburn & associated vineyards

Video of the last trip made by boat down the Douro with barrels

How they navigated the rapids was incredible!

Lovely museum

Cockburn started his winery about 1815.  It appears that once the French and English were fighting the 100 Years War, many years back, England needed a way to get wine – and they didn’t want it from France for obvious reasons!  So, somebody discovered Port and that’s what started all the business back and forth between the two countries.  Cockburn ended up moving here to Portugal and became a big port importer/exporter.  Wanting to eliminate the middleman, Cockburn eventually started purchasing grapes and making his own port to export to England (this is obviously a very condensed version…). The winery was run by the family from 1815 until the early 1960’s.  At that time, it was sold to a large conglomerate and changed from making smaller amounts of first-class port to larger amounts of cheaper port – but still bottled under the same name.  Finally, in 2010 or thereabouts, the company was sold to the Symington family, who had already been involved in port production, and had the benefit of becoming, yet again, a family-owned business.  There are now 9 Symington’s who work for Cockburn in all sorts of different capacities – wine maker, son-wine-maker-in-training, marketing, sales representation in both England and the U.S. and on it goes.  The quality is back, and I mean, really, truly back.

 

They make and repair all their barrels -- and the have a lot!

Still worked the "old fashioned" way; takes an apprentice 40 years!

The cellars went on and on and on ...

The Cockburn crest is beautiful!

Very private reserve bottles

Note the dates!

As it turns out, we had a private tour with Antonio, which was amazing!  We were able to go into the coopery (they’re the only winery with their own full-time carpentry shop making and repairing their barrels constantly!)  It was incredible!  We also got to go into their “private” cellars and see the wines that have been kept for years.  They actually have a bottle from 1861.  I think we now have a very good working knowledge of the differences between white port, and tawny and ruby port.  It’s amazing!  To say that Cockburn has wine storage is to say that it gets warm in Tucson in the summer.  Incredible!

 

From the cellars we moved into our “private” tasting room (dedicated to a family member named Smythes) for our tasting.  We had come in with the idea of each having the same tasting, but our man at reception suggested that if we wanted to taste vintage port (which we did) we could combine two tastings together, giving us five different ports to taste, one flight with chocolate (YUM!) and the other with cheese.  Truly, a wonderful way to go, and a fabulous suggestion.

 

Our handsome guide, Antonio

Robert with second flight

Our first flight (note the chocolate)

And second flight with the cheese

I started our tasting with their white port.  It was good, but got much better with some gourmet Belgian chocolate.  Their tawny port, but with a different chocolate, was really good.  However, we now started moving into the vintages.  Our third tasting was Cockburn’s Quinta dos Canais vintage port, 2010.  Getting better, and our final two tastings were from 2011 and 2007, which were the best prime vintage years in quite a while.  To say that we are now dedicated vintage port fans is an understatement.  I kept looking for something I didn’t like, but that, of course, didn’t happen.  Let me only say that our second case of port will be on its way to Tucson soon…

Our view out to the river

Excellent Vinho Verde

Wonderful light veggie soup

R's cod fritters with two kinds of rice

My wonderful chicken with rice

Close-up of chicken and potatoes

Excellent chocolate mousse

Can you tell why R liked this place?

By this time, we were starting to think of lunch, so headed straight DOWN the street (past a brand-new Hilton hotel that I didn’t know about!) and at the bottom of the street, right on the river was a lovely dining area – lots of different places with tables outside.  We walked into the first place we saw, and when the waitperson said that their specials of the day were chicken and cod fritters, SOLD!  We usually like to sit inside, so as to avoid any problems with cigarette smoke (cigarettes are allowed in the outdoor seating), and this time it was wonderful – we sat right in the doorway with a fantastic breeze and had dinner.  

 

I had their oven roasted chicken with potatoes and rice, and R had their cod fritters with rice.  I have to say, that while my chicken was fantastic, even R’s fritters were great!  Lovely meal, along with glasses of vinho verde (very fresh young wine from the area just south of Porto.  I had a wonderful chocolate mousse for dessert, but R wasn’t as lucky with his creme brulee – it was pretty bad, which I found surprising!  Not a lot of taste!  However, we were both full and just about ready for naps!

 

So … getting picked up by Uber was quite an adventure!  We found a place that was very identifiable but – it was in Gaia, and the one-way streets were incredible!  If anyone who uses Uber remembers, there is signage saying how long before your driver reaches you – this was amazing!  We had to wait over 20 minutes, and it would say “1.2 mi away – 5 minutes” and then it would go back up to 8 or 9 minutes, and then back down to 4 and then back up…I felt so sorry for our poor driver!  I didn’t think he was ever going to get to us, but he eventually did, and was able to get us back to the flat in a very short time – once he got out of Gaia, that is!  SO glad I wasn’t trying to drive there!

 

Once in the door, I got the bed and R got the couch, and we were down for the count!  Up an hour or so later, and figuring we are definitely in for the night!  It’s almost 6 pm and we are still stuffed from “lunch!”  I’ve got some ironing to do, and then we can plan what’s happening tomorrow, our last full day in Porto, before we pick up the car and head to Lisbon on Sunday!

 

Lots of love!

m

xxx