As I write this, we're on a bus bound for Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. We've just spent two days in Porto, which is in Northern Portugal, and is the second largest city in the country. It's been great to finally be in continental Europe, as everything is so different to the UK & Ireland, which seem similar to back home in many ways.

Porto is on the North bank of the Douro river, with it's world-heriatage listed old town centre, while the south bank of the river is full of Port Wine companies. The old town streets are full of 3 to 4 storey buildings, with colourful tiles on the outside, and terracotta rooves. Very nice. They're also built on the side of the river valley, so they can be pretty steep (as my calves keep reminding me).

We did a cruise on the river, which basically took us between the main bridges crossing the river. The bridges were impressive, as the valley is high and steep, they cross very high above the water. The most amazing one has another deck down at the bottom of the valley, near the waterfront area, and was built in 1886.

The cruise dropped us off on the opposite bank of the river so we could check out the port wine places. We did a tour of one of them, then got into some tastings. Neither Zils or I are much into Port, but the stuff over here was better than any we'd tasted back home. They also make white port wine over here (not sure if you can get that in Tassie – I guess I never looked). We got our tour price refunded if we bought a bottle, so we ended up with a bottle of Ruby port for 5 euros. Bargain. Apparently this one's good with chocolate, perfect with easter just a couple of weeks away :-)

All the cafes seem to have shop windows full of delicious pastries, many of which we've sampled. The clear winner so far is custard tarts. The Lonely planet tells us that there's an area in Losbon that's renowned for these, so guess where we're heading tomorrow...

While I'm on the subject of food, our first meal in Porto has gone straight to the top of my favourite meals list. We shared a whole BBQ chicken, but it wasn't like an Aussie BBQ chook. It had been flattened out, and grilled flat on a grill while being basted with a tasty marinade. And cheap too. Brilliant.

Zilla said that I went a bit photo crazy in Porto, I guess since it was so different, so check out the Portugal photo gallery and you'll get a good look around the city.

That's all for now,

Paul.