The next day, after a good breakfast, we went for a quick walk. We went to the "Eiffel Tower" of Porto. It's the Clérigos Church. We went up the tower (225 steps to 75 m up) and had a great view of the city.
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| Porto Cathedral - walked past it later in the weekend |
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| Clérigos Church |
We then headed back to the hostel and joined a free walking tour of the city. It took about an hour and a half and was a great way to see parts of the city and learn a little bit of history. The first stop was just around the corner from the hostel. The Carmelite church. Well it is actually two churches. Though there is a law in Porto that two churches are not allowed to share a wall. So there is a tiny house in between the two! (See the green door).
We also went through a park that had the craziest trees. We asked what was wrong with them and it turns out that they are two trees graphed together. And one of the types of tree is a Canadian tree :)
Another stop was a great lookout over the city. In Porto none of the facades of the old houses are allowed to be changed, which makes for an interested look to the city. There are lots of areas that are a random collection of buildings all built together and areas that look as if they are falling down. I also saw many abandoned buildings and a bunch that only had the outer walls left. Unfortunately I didn't get any good photos of these things.
(left) some of the narrow streets. You can also see that there are lots of hills in Porto. (right) laundry - every window seemed to have a minute balcony and then a laundry rack!
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| Looking up towards city hall |
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| Porto train station - hand painted tiles :) |
After the tour we headed towards the river, where we sat for a long time enjoying the sunshine. It was a beautiful 25 degree sunny day. I was wearing capris and a t-shirt - in November!
Later in the afternoon we wanted to head out to the beach to see the sun set. We took on of their trams, which was super cool. It was an old tram that had been restored, and it was like going back in time! When we got to the beach it was still warm, but windy and cloudy so we realized there wouldn't be any sun set to see. We went into the water though :) I'm pretty sure that was my first time in the Atlantic ocean!! Oh, and we only walked in a little way. I got somewhat wet from the waves, but it was so much fun. We then walked up to the small light house and ended up spending the rest of the evening sitting on the wall that was around what the lighthouse was built on watching the waves and lightning. We enjoyed some port, and luckily didn't really get rained on! It was one of those evenings that I wanted to go on forever, it just seemed so perfect.
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| No, the sky was not this blue. It was taken from the landing of the lighthouse, so you can't see the rocks and walls that the waves were really pounding against. Hopefully I will get some photos of that from friends to post. |
Sunday morning Will and I (being the only ones out of bed) went for a walk to explore Porto. We started by heading towards the iron bridge designed by Eiffel. We stopped by the cathedral and then walked around it trying to find how to get over the bridge. We wanted to go over the top, so managed to find it by avoiding going down any big hills.
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| Ponte Luis I |
We strolled across the bridge, enjoying the view. The top part is only for pedestrians and trams, no cars, so it was very nice. In doing so we left Porto, and entered the city of Gaia. We didn't explore Gaia much, just stayed near the bridge and watched the sky get bluer (we had started our walk in the rain) and some rowers struggling to get back up river.
We walked back across the bottom of the bridge (not so nice with all the cars) and then did a loop around Porto, ending up back at the Clérigos Church. So we went from the Eiffel bridge to the "Eiffel tower". It was neat wandering the streets, exploring the tiny side streets. We walked up and down a bunch of hills, such a foreign concept after Frankfurt! One stop we made was at the church of São Francisco. I can't even describe the inside of it, you will have to look at the pictures on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_S%C3%A3o_Francisco_(Porto). I liked reading in the church about how Napoleon used it as a horse stable after invading Portugal. We couldn't figure out how he got the horses up to it though, as the only entrances we could see were after long flights of stair. We also went into the catacombs in the basement. The walls were lined with inscriptions of who was buried there, and the floor was all numbered tombs as well. In the largest room, there was a huge wooden table. Not quite sure why, and it looked pretty funny as the floor was at about a 15 degree angle.
We met up with the others and spent the remainder of our time back in Gaia. We went to the Calem port cellars. We took a tour which included some history, getting to see some of their huge vats where the port ages and then some information about the different ports and some taste testing. My favourite part was seeing the huge vats. I would guess it was less than a quarter full, and still had more than 10,000 litres of port in it!
Then, after some lunch, we sadly had to return to the airport and to Frankfurt. I had such a lovely weekend I can't wait to do this again. Good thing I booked another trip today :) Another group of us from school are off to Hamburg at the beginning of December for some Christmas marketing!!
Also - will post some more pictures of Porto when I steal them from my friends :)
Miss you all and hope you are having as much fun as I am!!!
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