Porto

Matt and I went to Lisbon station to go to Porto and ran into Yvonne from our hostel, she had been in Lagos for a few days and had not liked it either. Funny enough she was on the same bus as me and directly opposite seat so we had a good chat all the way to Porto. We also met a portugese guy on the bus who was really helpful and knew a lot about his country. The portugese are some of the nicest I have met, they always want to help and are so welcoming (compared to the French anyway).

Our hostel was quite nice, it had a huge kitchen and good beds. Only problem was our room was on the main street of where every night club in town was. All night the music was pumping through our windows and it was all lame 90's music like old offspring and that 'I'm a barby girl' song. Lucky for me I have brought ear plugs on this trip and I use them every night and sleep like a baby.

Matt was still unwell on the first morning so I met up with Yvonne and we trekked to the otherside of the Porto River to try wine tasting. This place is amazing and mum n dad you would love it. There is about 30 huge wineries based on the river and they all have tours and tasting sessions. The one we did was really nice, it had a nice garden with peacocks in it and they toured us around the cellars and taught us how they make port. I pretended i knew what they were talking about, the lady was describing the dewy difference of certain ports while i tasted and i just nodded and agreed like a pro. I could hardly stomach the stuff to be perfectly honest!

An interesting fact, they spend heaps of money trying to build machines to crush berries as un upgrade from using peoples feet but the machines could were never as effective as the old school jump up and down on the grapes with your feet method. So they still do it today.

Porto itself is very cool, everywhere you look is an old monument or building of significance, it is a very 'old' town and is actually quite dirty, one of the more grimy places I have been so far. I think it may be because Portugal is very short of money right now as a country and things are starting to run down. Everything was dirt cheap, me and matt were buying1 euro hamburgers and cooking huge dinners for under 5 euro from the supermarkets.

A guy i my hostel told me a joke: 'What is the capital of Portugal?' i said 'Lisbon?' and he said 'no, 3 dollars'... witty.

We only stayed Porto 2 nights but was a great chance to recharge the batteries. We didn't go out , although we did do a huge amount of walking which is probly good from all the unhealthy food we are eating. Looking forward to getting back into some exercise when I get home.