Once again, we hooked up with Culinary Backstreets. This time it was for a tour of Porto called “Beyond the Barrel: From Decadent to Down-home in the Heart of Porto”.
Donuts called glorias for breakfast. They are puff pastry with custard and a sugar glaze on top. Taste good, and good for you too. At Bakery Boca Doce.
Beautiful limestone sidewalk cobblestones. Dangerous when wet, but it was a nice day. Still dangerous when uneven.
Elaine and our guide Carine at the cheese counter of the Mercado do Bolhão. The plate on the top of the case contains the cheese we were about to sample.
After our visit to the Mercado, we got a good view of the Clérigos Tower. We also stopped at a traditional grocery store where we sampled chocolate covered orange peel. Yum.
Tasca Casa Louro is a fútbol bar whose owner is absolutely crazy for FC Porto, aka the Dragons.
Carine and William at Tasca Casa Louro. William has a new scarf.
The tasca’s proprietor, Paulo, told William his Real Madrid FC scarf just wouldn’t do. So, Paulo gave William an FC Porto scarf. That scarf stimulated thumbs up throughout the city for the rest of the day.
This mid-morning snack, of fried sardines, sliced sausages (salpicão) and broa de Avintes (bread) was accompanied by Moscatel from Favaios.
Next stop was Gazela for yet another mid-morning snack.
This Cervejaria (beer bar) served a delicious sausage, cheese, spicy sauce and grilled mini-baguette concoction called cachorrinhos, which means little hot dogs, but they’re so much more.
A lot of butter slathered on the bread. The panini grills in action.
The finished product – except there should be two of them side by side. We didn’t wait to take the picture before we ate one of them. It goes down great with beer.
Porto’s national theater building.
Sculpture of a woman bearing a load of firewood, near an overlook over the Douro River in Porto.
A view of the Douro and Gaia.
Jet skis on the Douro
We passed through a lovely park with blooming camelias on our way to our lunch.
Jardim Marques de Oliveira – the oldest city park in Porto
Camelia.
Carine pours us some vinho verde at the restaurant where we had lunch. We don’t know the name of this place, but it was a family run spot for lunch.
Lunch was a stewed veal with rice and carrots and a delicious kale soup.
And the ubiquitous French fries.
Our last stop was at Padeirinha Doce for dessert and coffee. This dessert was called Pão de ló de Over. It’s a very eggy sponge cake with some sugar, cooked soft. It is a typical Christmas dessert.
We bid farewell and thanks to Carine and parted ways. We walked downhill a little bit to see the remains of Porto’s medieval city wall. Then we walked back to the hotel and learned that our connecting flight to Amsterdam early the next morning had been cancelled. So, the rest of the afternoon and evening was fraught as we tried to make alternate arrangements. By 9:00 in the evening we were hungry again and Elaine’s ankle was swollen from all the walking.
The remaining medieval city wall. Elsewhere in town defunct trolley tracks follow the route of the former wall.
We made it back to Rua de Santa Catarina. It was a Saturday before Christmas. The street was mobbed with shoppers.
Back on the Torgil, Elaine had been icing her injured foot and ankle regularly. However, our little hotel did not have a freezer for Elaine to chill her ice pack. William ventured out and bought two packages of frozen kale to use as a substitute. Elaine needed this after two days of vigorous walking up and down the hills of Porto.
Ovos mexidos comprised our dinner, along with some gelado. William picked these up while he was out buying the frozen kale. Meanwhile Elaine was making frantic phone calls to the airline and concluded that we had flights home the next morning.
We packed, showered and hit the sack for a few hours until it was time for us to catch our Uber to the airport.