May 27 – Leixões (Porto), Portugal

Weather – 31º

a unique 14,299 liters

Steps – 6,239

Humidity – 41%

Leixões is the port to get to the city of Porto about 14 km away. It is an area  in the city of Matosinhos (pop. 50,000).

Porto (pop. 1.8 mil) is the second largest city in Portugal, 280 km north of Lisbon (€200 Uber ride, if you needed to) and was first settled in the 2^nd C BC. This is where port wine comes from and is named after Porto.

This is our second visit to Porto, the first being in 2006 when we were on a Douro River cruise.

tasting

a few of what Burmester makes

What seems like a massive tour group is split into 2, so that we are 2 groups of 22 – this is a good
number. We travel on a large coach bus. Chris and I, as usual, head straight to the back. In our experience, everyone and I mean EVERYONE wants the front of the bus. Unless you get the first row, each seat provides the exact same view out of the side. A side view is perfectly fine with us.

Being at the back, means we almost always have 2 seats each – we can spread out and yesterday shifted from one side of the bus to the other as the sun moved. There were 2 guys today, one who sprinted to the front of the line, so he and his partner could sit in the front row. He was a big dude, who made himself even bigger buy extending his elbows while his partner caught up to him
so no one could get on the bus before them. I’ve seen some pretty awful behavior on tour busses, but this might take the cake.

cool building over my shoulder

historical port boats

Anyway…after we were seated comfortably at the back of the bus, Ricardo, our guide, explained all things Porto to us. We started with a drive along the coast as me made our way into the historical centre of Porto. We saw folks enjoying the beach on this HOT day, a lighthouse, 2
forts and other random sights – this was all while driving.

Once we arrived in Porto, we visited Burmester port wine cellar for a tour and a tasting. As you would expect, we learned the history of port, how it is made and the different kinds. The most interesting thing I learned was that each barrel has a different capacity because they are hand made. I thought all barrels were hand made and this is the first I’ve heard of them being a different capacity, makes sense I guess, I just never knew this.

very refreshing

church on the hill

We tasted a white, tawny and ruby port. I’m not the biggest fan of port…a bit too sweet for me – my favourite was the white. This was accompanied by a piece of dark and milk chocolate – interesting pairing.

Next was a short walk to board a boat for a scenic 1 hr sail along the Duoro river –
looking at Porto on one side and Vila Nova de Gaia, which is technically the other side of the river from Porto. We are always afraid of the sun on boats that we fear may not have shade…there was shade. 

on either side of the river

We saw many historic buildings, passed under many bridges, had jet skiers zoom past us, all while listening to narration of what we saw.

no idea who this is, but liked it

pretty fancy McDonald's

Ricardo, of course, was keeping track of the 22 us the whole time…that is until he lost 2! He walked all the way back to the Port cellar, but nope…lost. We never did find out what happed. Hopefully a health incident wasn’t the cause, which is the only explanation I can think of for people to get lost!

After our time on the river, we had some free time in Vila Nova de Gaia. We wandered for a very short time but quickly found a spot for a refreshment – sparkling white sangria. We only had 40 minutes, so figured we’d rather relax with a beverage, than rush after wandering more.

one of many bridges

might be the best steak I've ever eaten