We just finished three full days in Porto, Portugal which
also included a day trip to nearby Douro Valley. The Douro is where soooo many
grapes are grown and eventually turned into port. But that’s another blog post coming very soon.
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| The weather has been fantastic! It's nice to be back on the coast, too. Woodhaven isn't super close to the ocean, but it's close enough to get marine influences in our air and weather. I forget how much my body and spirit like being near the water. |
Porto is – as you might deduce – a port-side town. Strategically positioned in northern Portugal where the Douro River empties into the Atlantic, the city dating back to Roman times has become quite the tourist destination in the last decade or so. Porto comes complete with scenic bridges, river boats, and a gondola ride over the river like you find at county fairs. Sadly, we never had time to take a glide. It looked like a wonderfully romantic and unique way to take in the beautiful vistas.
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| Porto is surprisingly hilly! |
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| Lots of lovely spots to grab a snack. |
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| We later learned that J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame lived in Porto when she first started writing her books. We're pretty sure the winged lion statues in this fountain inspired Gryffindor. |
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| Pretty architecture that sort of looked like Spanish Victorian, if that's a thing. |
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| The inside of a store called "O Mundo Fantastico da Sardinha Portuguesa" aka "The Fantastic World of Portuguese Sardines" – for all your sardine needs. I had none. Ewwww. |
The hilly city of about 250,000 residents (the metro is about 1 million) sits on the north side of the river. We stayed in a hotel on the south side, in a small town called Gaia. It provided easy walks to port houses and also offered stunning views of Porto. Porto is old and occasionally steep, with narrow, bumpy cobblestone streets, palm and eucalyptus and pine trees living together harmoniously, and lots of red tiled roofs topping light-colored buildings. It is so pretty! And sort of magical.
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| There is a foot bridge at the bottom which we never got around to walking across. Also, locals gather nightly on the top bridge to watch the sunset. That makes my heart so happy! |
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| The bridge is to the right, the Atlantic Ocean is to the left. A few of the blobs that look like boats are actually gondola cars. |
We spent one day learning all about port. Another day was spent in Old Porto, eating and drinking our way through the town with a local guide. The third day was spent leisurely cruising down the Douro River about 2 hours upstream, watching the vineyards reveal themselves as the first rain of our trip slowly gave way to sunny humidity.
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| The Douro River Valley |
Along the way, we got to have a mind-blowing dinner. The
food and drink were quite tasty. However, what made my head explode was that we
enjoyed it with friends. In Portugal. What?!
Teresa and I worked together a lifetime ago at a Really Big
Oil Company in San Francisco. We became fast friends and stayed in touch as our
lives and careers took different paths. For several years – after we moved to
Woodhaven and Teresa and her family moved to Idaho – we met annually in Walla
Walla, Washington to enjoy wine weekends. They were always filled with laughter, authenticity, and great food and drink.
A couple of years ago, as their daughter was preparing to launch from college, Teresa and Jack started to put into action a long-held dream to live abroad. With Portuguese roots, it didn’t take the Abbotts long to figure out where to graft their American roots onto old stock. Now living an easy Uber ride north of Porto, Teresa and Jack motored down to Porto and joined us for a lovely dinner overlooking the Douro River. I’m still utterly amazed. It was soul-warmingly familiar and stunningly unexpected to catch up with dear friends over a meal in Portugal. A huge highlight!!
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| Never in a million years would I have predicted this photo when I first met Teresa in a San Francisco conference room in the mid-1990s! With much prodding from fascinated friends, Teresa agreed to start a blog about their adventures moving to Portugal. Check it out here! |
As I said, the dinner was tasty. Honestly, it had a lot to do with me ordering a very unPortuguese pumpkin risotto. I tried so hard to enjoy local Portuguese cuisine. I don’t normally consider myself a picky eater, but I just couldn’t find anything to get excited about food-wise. Once a very poor country living under a dictatorship (until 1974), Portuguese people have incorporated all of the pig “from snout to tail” into their daily diet. Plus a fascination with sardines. And salting cod like movie theater popcorn. Rob asked me if I could live in Porto. As lovely as the city and people are, I would pretty much starve and mope around dreaming of fresh salads and spices.
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| Salty cod with chickpeas |
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| Tasty sausages and a steak tartare thing. |
Much to our monolingual relief, Rob and I have had absolutely no issues getting around without speaking Portuguese or even Spanish. I learned to say “thank you" (obrigada for female speakers; obrigado for male speakers), but otherwise I just listened to Portuguese around me and was grateful when I was correctly sized up as an English-speaker and the language was graciously switched.
Portuguese spoken in Portugal is a fascinating language. It’s not Spanish. And it’s different than the Portuguese spoken in Brazil. Seeing it written, homeland Portuguese looks like Spanish that is written in puffy paint. It has lots of round letters and includes lots of squiggly accents and tails. To listen to it, Portuguese sounds like a weird mashup of Spanish and Russian, with lots of soft “shhh” sounds and words that seem to run into each other.
As I do, I have spent a lot of the past few weeks observing (or staring at) the world around me from behind the safety of my sunglasses. Here are a few things I have noticed:
- Spanish and Portuguese people do not carry around their
drinks. No water bottles, no toddler-sized Stanleys, no bespoke coffees in
Venti cups. And yet somehow, they all appear suitably hydrated. While white
sneakers used to be the tell-tale sign of an American tourist, I’m starting to
wonder if our emotional support water bottles are now the beacons of Americanism.
- Tattoos are not really a thing. Nor are body piercings.
Coming from Portland, the folks on the Iberian Peninsula look naked and
remarkably untouched.
- Similarly, very few people color their hair unnatural
colors. The only people I have seen with purple, pink, blue, green, or Raggedy
Ann red hair have been women in their 70s who have clearly reached the
age of not caring what anyone thinks.
- North Face is THE brand of travelers and outdoorsy people
here.
- Portuguese women are more about hats and less about scarves.
- Leggings as public attire is definitely an American thing.
- Smoking is super common, even in outdoor restaurants. Vaping is very popular, too, especially among 30-something women.
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| Something else I observed: a street musician in Porto using chickens (sitting on his knees) as musical accompaniments. Click here for a video! |
Rob and I are currently on a train zooming three hours south to Lisbon. We will spend tomorrow being tourists and then gawdawful early the next morning, we start our trek home to Woodhaven. I’ve heard lots of people say Lisbon reminds them of San Francisco. Can’t wait to see if I agree!
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| Beautiful sunset over Porto and Gaia. I totally get why gathering on the bridge to watch the sunset is a daily local tradition. |
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