Porto!

On Monday, February 15, AJ and I woke up before the sun to get on a bus to an airport outside of Paris to catch a plane to Porto, Portugal.  Porto is often called the second capital of Portugal.  At one point it was the capital, but now is the second-largest city in Portugal.  It is located about 3 hours north of Lisbon.    It is a really old feeling city.  It is also one of the cheapest in Europe.   It wasn’t uncommon to see shoes for 12 Euro and we bought a large bottle of water for only 60 cents.

This was quite a world apart from Paris where we almost had to pay $11 for toothpaste.  The warmer weather and cheaper prices were a nice welcome to the city.  For a third of the price of our Paris hotel, we had a  2 room suite in Porto with a large balcony and huge bathroom. 
When we arrived in Porto, we weren’t sure where to go.  One of the interesting things I’ve found here is that when you ask someone where something is at, they will often walk you right to the door.  I was shocked in Lisbon when I asked a woman where a shop was and she literally closed her shop for a second and walked me the 10 minutes to the place I was looking for.  The same happened here in Porto; we asked a nice man at the train station help desk where our hotel was and he just walked us to the doors of the hotel- a good 10 minute walk.  The whole time he was trying to teach AJ and I how to pronounce the name of our street, which I still cannot pronounce. 
The first thing we did was make our way to Villa Nova de Guia, the village across the bridge where the Port wine cellars are located.Porto is known above anything for the only place in the world where Port wine is made.  Port wine is wine fortified with Brandy.

 The grapes are grown east of Porto, in the mountains of the Duoro River Valley.  To plant the vines, they have to use dynamite to get into the ground.  Then, the age the wine, they have to take the grapes to the cooler cellars of Oporto.  This is still done today by boat. 

When they first started doing shipping the wine,they found that it would go bad, so they fortified it with Branda and voila, Port wine was created.  And it is amazing.  It is 20 percent alcohol, so you don’t need a lot. It has a thick, smooth texture and can sometimes be really sweet.  The white port is more dry and drunk as an aperitif and the reds are usually a dessert wine.  Personally, I can drink Port at any time, it all tastes quite delicious to me. We found it pretty reasonable pricewise and AJ and I took home a vintage bottle to hold onto for a few years.

On our second day in Porto, we just strolled around the city , stopping in some of the most gorgeous churches we’ve seen in Europe and admiring the azulejos (typical Portuguese tiles on the buildings).  We also tried some typical Porto dishes which tend to be really heavy.  This one is called a Franchiesa?  It consists of a piece of bread, slice of ham, beef steak, bacon, another piece of bread and is all covered in melted cheese, a sauce and then topped off with a fried egg!

We really loved Porto.  It was a world apart from Paris and I think seeing such contrasting cities back to back really brought out the best of both of them.