Clem and I decided to escape the cold and find a last minute deal to somewhere hot and interesting. Europe is so small - compared to North America and Asia and to someone who loves to see new countries - the whole continent was calling to me. I kept looking at the map and the bus schedule and thinking - Bulgaria - oh my god, only 5 hours away....Hungary - 5 hours away...and so on and so on. Because I had the confines of that return ticket forcing me back into reality, I tried to figure out a 10 day route through as many countries as I could - even just staying on the bus and watching the cultures change....but that was not working out. I couldn't get enough information on the timeframes to be sure it might actually work without me getting stuck in Latvia without an ability to get to Paris for my flight. So Clem and I started looking at cheap flights to anywhere. We spent a number of hours looking at getaways to Tunisia and Morocco and Croatia and then, with two days to spare, we found cheap ryan Air flights to Porto Portugal and put our own package together.  
Clem had always wanted to see Porto - I had not even heard of it before. That just added to my interest as I had never seen any part of Portugal and it sounded like it should be warm and nice. Around $120 for the return flight and $150 for hotels. Nice. Poor Clem had so many ends to tie up quickly - school visits and real life stuff like that, but we made it to the Tours airport - you can park for free at the door...where else in the world is that still possible???? and flew off - just three or four hours and we were in northern Portugal, not too far from the Spanish border. First impression - nice airport - very modern. Metro - new and quaint - two car trains that travel overland. Then we started to get closer to the City centre.....yuck. Graffitti everywhere on the fully tiled houses. They tile every surface of their houses - yeah, those tiles we normally use in the bathroom. some were nice, most just an ugly mish mash. The churches were another thing - tiled with soft blue and white murals on the outside and inside elaborate guilded carved surfaces.

 The people on the train were so not French. The French have a real fashion sense - classic looks and a rather snotty attitude about the whole thing. Many of thoses stereotypes are well earned about the French. I even had women tsk tsk my ugly sandals. You apparently only are supposed to wear sandals at the beach and not in the town centre. Thanks. Anyway, the Portuguese were looking rather shabby, even take out the uptight French standard - this place was obviously quite poor. We emerged out of a tunnel and excited the train - coming up onto the street right in the middle of the city. The desperate situation was shocking - instantly.
Porto was obviously a very grand city back in the glory days of massive scupted buildings and great city squares. Now it has suffered some kind of economic devastation that has left the entire downtown area mostly abandoned and in decay. The extent of the decay is hard to describe. Think of New York City or London or Paris and the beautiful old buildings - the 10 story grand girls that have 15 foot ceilings and massive arched window. Now think of them all empty with windows smashed and pigeons flying in and out - entire city blocks abandoned - most looked like they have been empty for at least 5 to 10 years. 

Portugals current economic crisis makes the news every day but I had no concept of how that translated. So beautiful, yet so sad. The city looked very drab and dismal, very few people on the streets, few in the scarce restaurant patios - and it was the weekend!

The stores that were still open looked like they came out of the early 1960's - really like time travel. The fashions in the windows matched those 1960's looking decor. so so weird. 




Porto is a river city and the bridges are stunning - one was designed by Eiffel - the guy who did the Paris tower. We walked and walked and walked. Lots of hills, amazing archetecture, nice people and really lousy ugly food. After France, all food looks pale in comparison, but I must say the food in this city was both ugly, hard to come by and really awful tasting. Mostly they sell cakes in 1950 type cake diners. They are the one slice of life that is still alive in Porto. Sad people in sad dark cake shops eating tons and tons of ugly, poorly shaped and presented cakes and cookies. Just not nice.

Unemployment is running in the high 20 per cents and we wondered where all the people went. This had been a rich a vibrant city for thousands of years and now......so not Asia!!! More proof of the decline of the Roman empire. We did the hop on, hop off bus, and frankly I was surprised they even had that running.  

One nice thing was it took us uot of the city centre and out to the suburbs where we got to see tracks and tracks of depressing social housing - that's where the middle class has ended up, and then the houses of the very rich, out along the gorgeos beachfront seaside.

Porto seems to have only the Port industry alive and well. I met a tour guide, touring a little group around the stunning churches and she was telling me that these are really sad times in the tourist industry - just no one has any money to travel and then they suffered for weeks with the ash crisis - the airports were closed and many of the few tourists cancelled, making their sad situation even sadder.

So our weekend away was a very interesting cultural excursion. Porto was not what I thought of when I think Portugal. Most tourists go to the south - to the algarve and to the beaches. I want to learn more about what happened to Porto - it was that interesting and I just can't imagine that someone somewhere would not have the resources to buy up the downtown and develop lofts and cool work spaces. The depth of the European recession is very apparent in this area and I wonder what the next few years will bring.

Before I left with Clem for our long weekend, I was in touch, by email, with another friend I also met in Vietnam last year. Loke Clem, we too hit it off right away, and although we only spent a couple of days together, we have continued our friendship. She lives in Holland near the German border and she was able to take some days off work so we decided to try and also do a last minute getaway together - the next weekend. First we were going to meet for a few days in Amsterdam but these last minutes, in Europe are real bargains. I told her to surprise me as I didn't care where we went, as long as it was somewhere new to me. The plan was she would do the research and booking while Clem and I were away and then I would come to Holland to meet her and we could get away to somewhere. I wished I had more time - I am not used to have to plan a week ahead!!!!!!  
I was waiting for the surprise destination to be revealed. So many countries and so little time. Where next???

Clem and I returned back to Tours on Monday - tired and baffled by what we had seen in Porto. We did do our part to boost their economy by buying some real bargain shoes and I bought a couple of handbags. Clem got some clothes at the many 'going out of business' sales. So depressing to see an entire city in dire times. Neither of us could figure out what could have happened to this jewel and wondered if this is where the rest of Europe is headed.