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.
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