Porto -Home of the most beautiful bookshop in the world.

The old taxi driver, doubled over at right angles with a hunched back, insisted on putting my bags in his taxi. He tells me in Portuguese about the places to see and not understanding, I just nod. It's amazing he's still working. He must be 70 at least. My welcome to #Porto.

The Poet’s Inn, my hotel, I discover is an upmarket hostel but I have a spacious room with a poem on the wall and a tiny balcony that I can see the river from. The area seems a bit salubrious and decayed but I set off to the #LivreriaLello, tagged as the most beautiful bookshop in the world and supposedly the inspiration for Harry Potter as J K Rowling lived in Porto for ten years, and used to have coffee upstairs in the bookshop. I have to go around the corner to buy tickets because it’s become so famous but it is worth it. The staircase is a triumph, the woodwork, the stained glass. I hang around trying to get photos without people, which isn’t easy as there are Instagrammers everywhere taking selfies on the stairs. After, I find a retro bar and have a cider, the heat here is palpable.

Next morning after a great breakfast of a wholemeal bun that I fill with cheese and quince paste, I’m off to Cafe Majestic, dating back to 1921. It’s gorgeous, outside and in. Waiters are friendly, coffee expensive so I sit and people watch amongst the gilt, the chandeliers and the mirrors. Afterwards I find some Art Nouveau shop fronts, with beautiful interiors filled with an array of retro sardine tins, biscuits and all manner of interesting boxes and desserts run by two old men and possibly a younger son. It's like a museum and they are so proud of it. I stop again at another Art Nouveau cafe where I have a Pingado and a #barratis, a seeded biscuit with icing which is chewy and delicious.

I find the famous Sao Bento railway station with it’s high ceilings and a waiting room full of incredible tiled scenes. I am tossed back in time wherever I walk here and to think that when I arrived, I’d worried that I had made a bad decision because as always, the town near the main railway station is always seedy. I find the church that girls are instagrammed in front of and an American girl asks if I can take a photo of her mid jump in front.

Then I walk down to the Douros river to view the colourful houses and array of cafes and restaurants along the waterfront. I dine on seafood tapas, plenty of oil, chilli and big hunks of garlic and then retire back to the hostel where I and another Japanese lady are the oldest inhabitants.

Next day, I’m off to Aveiro for a day tour. It's a town on a lagoon, it’s canals navigated by barcos moliceiros, traditionally painted boats that originally harvested seaweed, now tourists are their cargo. We tour the small waterways as the tour guide tells us that Aveiro was a town of salt until a huge storm and rocks blocked the original forty five kms of canals. The town went from 8000 citizens to 250 and work here in medieval times ended. People moved to the next place we were going to and started fishing. We have a quick visit to the fishing village ofPraia de Mira and I photograph the striped colourful houses and we’re off again.

We finish the tour back in Aveiro and have a bit of time to look at the beautifully restored art nouveau buildings and I go to buy the sweets of this region called Ovos moles, delicate shell and fish shaped pastries filled with a sugary egg yolk filling. Evidently, they used the egg whites for starching clothes and had to find something to do with the yolks. They’re horrible but photograph well.

We head back to Lisbon and I find a tapas bar to have spicy mussels. I so want to buy some of the colourful roosters but they’re mostly metal and too heavy to carry. There are beautiful bags made of cork but they probably won’t make it through customs into Australia. Then I find a small cafe that serves an egg pudding in port wine sauce made with bacon fat served with a Porto sherry. I’m not quite sure about it but consume it regardless. My time here in Porto has ended.

Sintra - Roosters, swallows and eccentrics.

I'm in the mountains of Sintra where the nobility of Portugal built their palaces and villas to escape the heat of summer, as you do. My hotel is a beautiful 1800's weatherboard. There's a slight mist across the valley that I have a view of. There are tiny mouse paintings around the skirting boards. The village itself is beautiful, staircases up to artisan shops, ceramics, linen, retro sardine tin shops and lots of rooster items as it's national symbol of Portugal. They are usually made of metal and come in all sizes and are brightly painted. I end up buying a tiny keyring that's easy to pack. I lunch on a stew of beans, cabbage, pork belly and chorizo. Wholesome and hearty.

Fortified I climb the winding hill to Quinta da Regaleira. Extraordinary! It's gothic splendour and beyond, built in 1904 by an eccentric man incorporating symbols of different ideologies. Intricately carved grottoes, follies, bridges, towers as viewing platforms and incredible gardens with the famous Initiation Well which took me ages to find. It resembles an underground tower lined with stairs, 27 metres of them. Evidently the spacing of the landings combined with the number of steps are linked to the Tarot. I look down to see the staircase swirling like an ammonite down to a mosaic star pattern. Underground caverns and tunnels lead you to other parts of the gardens and lakes. The imagination of the designer is endless. I'm exhausted after experiencing this place and head back down for a ginga in a chocolate cup.

The hotel has a lovely shabby chic cafe where breakfast is served and it's huge! Croissant, Portuguese tart, a roll, yogurt and fruit, ham, prosciutto, cheese , tomatoes, egg and coffee. I make a sandwich to take with me up to see the Palacio das Monastero.

This villa is glorious, a mix of Arabic, Indian and gothic design. The elaborate stone and plasterwork within the hallways and in the dome is stunning. I wander out into the gardens and as I do , the perfume of port wine magnolia and roses are activated by the arrival of the sun. On my return to the old town, I see the swallows, swooping and sliding back up into the blue air and I find some ceramic ones in a shop, and buy a set of three.

The next day I arrive early at the famous Instagram location of Palacio da Pena. The sun is out, there’s a slight breeze up in the mountains where the castle sits, it’s bright sunlight colours emblazoning the site with saffron yellow, vermilion and bright orange. It’s history dates back to the Middle ages with a chapel built after an apparition of the Virgin Mary. In the 15th century it became a monastery of 18 monks. It was damaged badly by lightning in the 18th century and then the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 reduced most of it to ruins except for the chapel. It lay untouched for decades until Prince Ferdinand, in 1838, turned it into a summer palace, using medieval and Islamic elements. It is beyond anything I’ve ever seen.

I fall in love with it’s whimsy. I tour the outside first before the hordes of tourists waiting in line start being allowed in. I am first in as I bought tickets online. I go to the main terrace and the view is stupendous, my eye drifts over the woodlands out over the azure blue sea. This is all framed by columns supporting arches of cadmium yellow with circles punched out; blue with the sky beyond. The colours remind me of Morocco. It’s a fantasy . After his death, the palace was inherited by his second wife, a classical singer with whom he fell in love with 16 years after the death of his first wife; the Countess of Edla.

The palace is beautifully decorated, courtyards and fountains and state rooms, bedrooms and sewing rooms. A glimpse back in time. The rooms are as they were from 1910, when the Queen at that time had to flee to Brazil after the Republican Revolution. After seeing the interior, I walk around the rim of the castle, dizzying heights down to the forests below and views from every side.

After, I walk up through the winding road through the forest and then hop onto a small bus that takes us up to the chalet that was built for the Countess of Edla in the grounds of the forest surrounding the castle. It's Alpine style but with the use of cork as a decorative moulding and set in another lot of gardens filled with species that her and her husband had sent here from all over the world.

I walk back down, the forest on either side of me, cooling the heat of the spring sunshine and further down towards the castle, there are rhododendrons hugging the hillside, the last of their colourful pink and red flowers colouring the woods.

I returned in a tuk tuk, the breeze cooling me. The woman driver drops me at the top of the village and I find the best tapas bar in town. I lunch on thick tendrils of garlic octopus, field mushrooms with goats cheese and prosciutto washed down with a sangria that tasted of roses and cinnamon. It's so good, I book for dinner.

I visit the National Palace, rooms of glorious tiles in rich and varied hues of emerald, malachite, jade. It’s the best preserved medieval palace in Portugal, inhabited continuously from the 15th -19th century. There’s a room with paintings of ships, swan and magpie rooms. The tiled scenes are so beautiful. The kitchens have an enormous pair of conical chimneys that taper skywards and can be seen throughout the town.

I am in awe of the tile work here and everywhere I turn in Portugal. I head back up the hill to my favourite restaurant with it’s little green chequered clothed tables outside in the warm fading sun. There’s a little enamel tin with pencil and a paper placemat that you tick off your order. I order codfish patties with olive tapenade, a salad that arrives in a rectangular ceramic plant container, accompanied by a little glass jar with a pale green olive oil dressing. I have Vinho Verde (green wine) ,that is famous in Portugal, it's light and fruity. Dessert is a recommended pumpkin cake that oozes in the middle with a caramel like filling with a curd gelato and walnuts. It’s amazing.

The waiter remembers me from lunch, he also chats to an American female solo traveller who sits alone with a large bottle of wine. She is perfectly groomed, hair sleek, a little black dress set off by a string of largish pearls, large diamond earrings glint in the setting light. I admire her, she has dressed for herself, alone. I sit for a while longer as the setting of the sun begins to occur and then we smile at each other as I leave. I walk back along the sculpture walk, past the bus shelter with its intricate carved walls and beautiful tiles, past the forests full of the sound of late afternoon bird calls. It's a town of romanticism, gothic extravaganzas and architects who've possibly found a source of magic mushrooms in the hills. My last night in Sintra. Tomorrow I leave on the early train to Porto.

Lisbon - Of tarts and tiles.

I've worked my way down through Spain to Lisbon. I get a taxi to the hotel with a woman driver. That's a rarity here as in most places. She works the late shifts so she can be with her 14 year old son in the mornings. I am beyond lucky with my life and feel so pathetic that I have the chance to travel for a year, eating out twice a day and yet I still have a stomach full of anxiety and I can’t even think of what I will do for the rest of my life without adding fear to my already overwrought digestion.

Lisbon is wet. The white cobblestones are so slippery that I walk with great care, protecting my expensive back operation. The next day it’s still bleak. I walk gingerly and find a beautiful old cafe run by two old ladies. I have the Portuguese tart of course, I’m not a great fan of custard but I have to have it with the Pingado coffee that is the Portuguese version of a macchiato. It’s strong and gets me moving. The shop is small and filled with male workers, grabbing coffee to go and the ubiquitous tart alongside.

I head towards Cafe A Brasiliera, built in 1905 and home of the Bica, a strong espresso. It became a meeting point for Portuguese intellectuals, writers and poets so I’m keen to try the coffee. It’s a wonderful art nouveau building, chequerboard floor, wooden details, great surrealist style paintings, mirrors and fantastic waiters. It’s packed with tourists and I squeeze into a small marble table and order a bica and another Nata tart in case the coffee's too strong.

It’s still raining as I emerge. I wander the streets looking at the tiled buildings everywhere. Art is built into this city! But it's starting to rain more heavily. There are tuk tuks here, as in Thailand, and they are offering cheap hour long tours of the city so I am won over by Fabio and his tuk tuk that is enclosed from the rain. He puts a rug over my legs and we're off.

Fabio is an aircraft engineer who has escaped Brazil and is retraining to work here where life, he thinks, is better. He’s got two kids back in Brazil that join him on holidays. He plays the guitar in cafes at night and sings. We go to the famed Miradors for the views but the fog has come in so I have to imagine them. We visit churches and he takes me on a tour of the old Alfama area where we drink the famous Ginga from an old lady who sits by her doorway with her homemade cherry liquor. The area is rundown but there’s a feeling that at night, everything would come alive. The tiled facades of the building are cracked but still amazing. It has such a 1950’s feel, as if it were put on pause.

I’m eventually dropped at the Time Out Market where I can lunch, Fabio offers me his card and tells me he’d happily take me around on his day off. He’s in his early forties, just starting to grey, soft sculptured lips and eyes of blue. I should take up his offer but I know I won’t. I didn’t run away to have a brief moment with a passing stranger. I’m not ready for that. I don't even go to see him playing his guitar tonight.

The Time Out Market or Mercado da Ribeira is a wonderful old marketplace from the 1890’s. I lunch there on big hunks of herbed octopus on a bed of fluffy, buttery potato. There are beautiful retro shops here as well. I go a bit crazy and buy a haul of vintage looking products. I love that about Europe, how they embrace and nurture their past.

I decide to walk back home, it's quite a way but the sun has begun to shine the city and the stones under my feet are not so hazardous. I pass over the bridge of the Rua Nova do Carvalho which was once Lisbon’s Red Light District and is now full of bars. It’s been gentrified since the old days of the port city when sailors hung around the area. It’s too early for the bars and it still looks slightly seedy from the bridge where I stand and the bright pink road beneath has seen better times.

That night I dine at Jamie Oliver's restaurant, close to my hotel. I've never dined in one because they're usually expensive but the Portuguese one is cheap. I have an amazing prawn linguine and then I'm off to bed as tomorrow I'm on the road again.