Porto (Oporto), 9th September 1 of 2 uploads today see Povoa prev

Got up early (for us!) and took the Metro as planned. Like Spain, the transport system is superb - clean, frequent, well used, easy to use and very reasonable. Why can't we do it too? 45 minutes and into the centre of Porto. What a place! We walked for 9 hours, up and down, up and down, winding in and out, along the riverfront, to most of the monuments - churches, towers, markets, the station, municipal buildings, basilicas and the rest. There are just too many and they are all unique, so impossible to give a proper flavour here. Even the train station has beautiful tiled murals.

Porto is on the river Douro, and has about 6 spectacular bridges spanning the river. The river itself feeds the Douro vineyards from which the famous Port is made. It is Portugal's 2nd biggest city and where the country gets its name, originally "Portucale" for Portus, the port north of the river and Cale on the south side. Something like that anyway. The main one is the D. Luis bridge which is on two levels - lower level for cars and pedestrians and the upper level for the metro and pedestrians. On the Porto side there is a funicular to take you from the bottom level to the top level of the bridge, it is that steep!

The main areas are the Ribeira quay where the old colourful buildings still stand high against the river edge. Now there are restaurants and cafes along the waterfront and traditional boats offering river trips. We wanted to do a river trip, but just ran out of time, but it would be a great way to see all the bridges and both sides of the city from a different perspective. Behind the waterfront are narrow winding streets with tall crumbling buildings - still a lot of renovation required. But in the doorways of these tall dark buildings are tiles and handicrafts, shops and small businesses and potteries, leather workers and the like.

Away from this are also grand buildings and posh shops, the market is daily, big and ramshackle. One can buy one's chickens alive or dead. There are pig's heads and trotters on offer (dried and smoked if you wish) and the Portuguese speciality tripe - with everything.

On the south side of the river are the wine lodges of the lower quarter of Vila Nova da Gaia. There are more than 58 port and wine companies here with unheard of names alongside the famous Fonseca, Calem, Sandeman, Dow, Graham, Ferreira, etc. You can go and have tastings and buyings. You can also visit the Solar do Vinho do Porto, headquarters to the Port Institute on the other (Porto) side of the river. We just didn't get the chance. Another day perhaps.

This coming weekend is the International Red Bull Air Race., a flying race held at locations all over the world from Australia to US deserts to City centres. The Porto one has a slalom and 4 gateways in the river through which the planes have to manoeuvre at speed - the challenge here is that they are all lower than the bridges, so the skill is swooping down low, doing your aerobatic twists and turns and getting up high again in time to miss the next bridge. They were setting up the course while we were there, a helicopter doing test flights between them - the photograph of the route was taken from the top of D. Luis bridge.

We had lunch at one of the restaurants on Ribeira quay, Portuguese specialities (but not tripe!!) R had sardines and W sort of cod balls with rice and salad. It was hot but slightly hazy, and all the ups and downs (despite using our tour ticket for the odd bus) were quite tiring. So headed back to the metro and Povoa de Varzim for "home" - exhausted, arriving about 8pm.

Would love to go back - to visit the Port caves, to do a river trip and to see the Air Race. Not sure if we can, but will see. Look out for the Race on television - it is a big event and will be transmitted world-wide.

Theory is we should leave tomorrow, but fog may prevent that....

10th September - Povoa still

The foghorns have been blaring night and day since our Oporto visit. We are stuck here for the moment - cannot see beyond about 50 metres. So its chatting to the itinerant international community again. Lots of ideas on offer.