I actually did some advance planning, and booked a three night stay at a hostel in Porto, a city in Northern Portugal famous for the production of Port wine. I decided to take advantage of the sharing economy and use BlaBla Car, a ridesharing app, to get to Porto. Felix, a friend from my Lisbon dorm, was slowly driving back to Amsterdam from Lisbon, and posting each leg on BlaBla car on the way. We met up with a french couple who were also going to share the ride, and I realized how lucky I was that A. I got shotgun because I already knew Felix; B. Felix had rented a super nice, leather-seated BMW for his Eurotrip; C. Felix is dutch, so naturally he had an awesome playlist for the drive; and D. Felix dropped me off right at my hostel door, so I didn’t have to carry my backpack far. I’ve used the app several times since, and it’s not always that easy.
I checked into the Porto Wine Hostel at around 1:30 PM, still groggy from only getting an hour of sleep after that crazy night out in Lisbon (see previous post). No one else was in my room, which was clean and bright. The beds had real mattresses and duvet covers, and I finally had a bottom bunk. I literally cried, I was so happy to have clean, personal space. It was such a stark contrast from my Lisbon dorm, that I really learned to appreciate decent accomodation. It also helped that it was about 20 degrees cooler in Porto, so I finally could go five minutes without sweating. I took my sweet time showering and unpacking, and then despite being delirious from lack of sleep, I walked to the beautiful Crystal Castle park and hung out at an outdoor concert.
The next morning, I went on a free walking tour of Porto to orient myself to the city and its history. During the tour, I noticed that this guy from the UK was wearing a deathly hallows bracelet (Harry Potter reference, for you faithless) and of course became friends with him. We went to lunch and ordered Francesinhas, which are the Portuguese take on Croque Monsieurs. How can you enhance a Croque Monsieur you ask? By adding four more types of meat including a full hamburger patty, an extra slice of bread, and even more cheese in the middle. And by covering it with “spicy” sauce (well, spicy by Portuguese standards). I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many calories on one plate, but that didn’t stop me from sending mine back because they had somehow forgotten my bacon!
After lunch, we went back to the Crystal Castles park and listened to music and read books. This one butterfly – okay fine, it was just a really pretty orange moth – kept landing on my kindle and my hands and just hanging out while I read. I was very content. My UK friend’s friends came to meet up with us, and we went to a really cool lookout of Porto at night where you could see the lit-up names of all of the big port wine houses along the river.
After that, we stumbled on a Portuguese block party. This woman had set up tables in a little sidestreet for fifty or so of her friends and relatives, and people were getting up and performing Fado for the group. This is the *authenticity* that you dream of stumbling upon while traveling, and they let us hang in the back, drink wine, and watch the performances. While the Fado wasn’t as good as some that I had heard in restaurants, it was lovely to see it performed by members of the community in such an impromptu setting.
The next day, I did a wine tour and tasting with a friend from my hostel. I’ll admit, I’m not crazy about port wine, but when in Port…right?
After that I was feeling a bit antsy in Porto, so I decided that I would find a BlaBla car to take me to the southern coast of Portugal called the Algarve (my tan from Greece was fading). While I was in my hostel waiting for my ride to pick me up, another guest who was headed home from a long vacation offered me his tent, because it was too heavy to take on the plane. I of course said yes, and made it my mission to find a place to go camping that week.