Today we get to go at an easier pace, get up have breakfast and decide to go on the hop on hop off bus, the boat tour on the Douro River, and go to the port wine cellar. Porto is a big city with very narrow streets and the street signs have not improved, so we are very glad to be on the bus. The city tour is for two and a half hours and covers a lot. As is typical in Europe Porto has a lot of very old buildings. They are built on the hillsides by the ocean and along the Douro River. There are a lot of old churches, statues, history and interesting architecture to see.
This is our hotel, the Boa Vista. It is right on the ocean and the Douro River where it enters the ocean. The fort is right across the street which protected the entrance to the city.
Coming into Porto on the river there are five bridges both old and new.
Porto is very much a sea oriented city, with boats being a big part – both for fishing and to transport port.
One of the many squares with churches and statues.
I am fascinated with all the tile work here on the buildings.
Some of the churches.
The ocean in front of our hotel and the lighthouse.
Coming up the Douro River into the entrance to the city.
This was our lunch – cod with cornbread. It had cornbread crumb topping, then a layer of cod and spinach on top of a layer of potatoes. Quite tasty.
This is one of the port boats.
We take a tour and tasting through the Burmester cellar of Port.
One of the interesting statues, a lion
Of course we could not have a boring day without some kind of adventure. We were riding the last “Blue Bus” back to the hotel with the same driver we had gone with all day, but didn’t want to ride the whole route again so told her we wanted to go to Boa Vista. So she said fine get off here and get on that bus in front of us, it is going there. So we jump off and climb onto the other bus. It goes a ways and then stops and the driver tells us that we have to get off and that he is done and going home. We get off and now have no way back to the hotel at the other end of the city. We finally discover that a section of the city is called the Boa Vista but is not near the Boa Vista Hotel. We call Carla to see if she can call two cabs for us since the six of us can’t fit in one. And Kathy gets two Uber cars coming for us when who comes along? None other than our Blue Bus driver we have had all day. We run and catch her and she says she will take us back to the hotel. This warranted a picture together when we got back to the hotel!
This is the fort in front of our hotel when we got back and this is the fort when we finished celebrating the end of another fun filled adventurous day!
