This morning, we said our goodbyes to the Torgil staff and transferred our luggage and ourselves to our hotel in Porto: In Porto Gallery Guesthouse. It was a charming little hotel with just six rooms; and of course, ours was on the third-floor walkup. Wonderful art was everywhere – in the hallways and in the room. After getting settled we set out to find a coffee shop that had been recommended by one of our fellow Torgil travelers, then to the iconic São Bento train station, famous for its azulejos.
View from our hotel room terrace. On the right is the backyard of the hotel; on the left, still overgrown, is the backyard of the building next door, which the hotel owners are renovating to be apartments.
This café, A Brasileira, was recommended by one of our fellow Torgil passengers. We had hot chocolate and cappuccino and some lovely pastries as our morning snack.
William enjoyed himself and his hot chocolate at A Brasileira
We went on to the São Bento train station. Based on the descriptions we had heard, the lobby with the azulejos was surprisingly small.
The blue azulejos depict the history of Portugal, with emphasis on Porto.
Other tiles seemed to depict various gods and goddesses and maybe myths, and also trains.
One would need a guide, which we did not have at this point, to understand what each mural is depicting.
This one was easy to understand: it shows farm life.
We think the upper blue mural depicts the olive harvest while the lower one shows rabellos on the Douro.
A huge battle scene. Difficult to imagine assembling a mural like this with ceramic tiles.
Sweethearts at the entrance to the track area in the train station.
It was a hustling and bustling place – despite its status as the secondary train station in Porto.
This mural depicts the legend of Egas Moniz presenting his wife and son to the conquering king. We learned this from detective work including translating the plaque and Wikipedia!
The ceiling of the São Bento train station lobby. All of this has been recently restored. The north side is marked with Minho and the other with Douro, the rivers that define the Porto region. (And on top of that, we saw the Minho River when we toured Galicia in Spain).
After the train station, we started wandering around and went into a few churches and enjoyed some pretty shop windows.
We braved the train/subway construction around the São Bento train station and saw the church of Santo Antonio at a little distance. It took some figuring to actually get to it, but we succeeded. Because of the construction we couldn’t get an unobstructed picture of the outside. Inside it was pretty fancy.
On the left of the main altar was a side altar that looked like it might be a tribute to the Virgin.
The barrel vaulted ceiling was impressive.
A crèche near the main altar rail
This side altar on the right of the main altar is a little puzzling. It’s very ornate, and looks like it may be a tomb.
When we finished in the church our wanderings continued past this charming store front. Elaine liked the red jacket on the left, but she has enough jackets.
This is Igreja Paroquial de Santo Ildefonso which was built in the 18th century. The 11,000 tiles on the facade were added in 1935, depicting the life of Saint Ildefonso and stories from the gospels. We went in.
Another golden altar.
We explored around the church and these were the most interesting things we found. So we moved on.
At last the shopping district! Rua de Santa Catarina is a very busy pedestrian-only shopping area.
More charming store fronts, this one selling coffee and tea.
These bakers are working at the Manteigaria just like in Lisbon. Yum
More shops on Santa Catarina
We were getting hungry and we were pretty sure that the city mercado, which we had passed on our way from our hotel, would have some restaurants. So, we headed there.
The Mercado do Bolhão had been closed for several years for renovation. This lovely, clean open-air market was the result. The three-story terraces on the sides contain restaurants, offices and a cooking school, etc.
The colors were so vibrant. This fruit stand begged to have its picture taken.
This stand sold cookies.
The meat stand was heavy on pork and definitely old country cuts of meat – a lot of pig’s ears and feet.
The loaves of bread were gorgeous, and of course we couldn’t decide what to get and neglected to get any. We’ll have to go back someday.
The seafood counters were amazing. The second tray on the left contains gooseneck barnacles like what we collected and consumed last year in Galicia. These were probably harvested in Portugal. These various shellfish are for consuming in the market, as they appear to be cooked. There is a cool Gordon Ramsay National Geographic video of Portuguese barnacle harvesting here: https://youtu.be/DNtVU_CpjCw
More beautiful seafood.
Dried salt cod, bacalhau, ready to take home and make into salads or pastéis de bacalhau, as we ate in Lisbon. Canned fish are displayed above.
This cod stand sells a variety of cod brands, and at least a couple call out their Icelandic origin.
We bought some dried figs stuffed with walnuts as a treat. They have a clever Portuguese name which we don’t remember. They sell something similar at Zingerman’s. These were delicious.
They even sold flowers.
Can you imagine so many kinds of salt?
Beautiful squashes.
We could hardly ever find vegetables in restaurants, beyond Portuguese cabbage and fried potatoes, but somebody in Portugal must eat them.
Mushrooms
Buttery sheep cheese – we tasted it the next day when we came back during our culinary tour. Elaine wishes she had bought some to sneak past customs and bring home.
Pastéis de nata are not the only pastries in Portugal.
We finally found a restaurant upstairs. Elaine liked the map on the far wall. There were plenty of restaurants upstairs, but we were specifically looking for one that featured francesinhos. The Pintainho Restaurante did just that.
We had a starter of pimentos padrones – slightly hot and sweet peppers, fried and salted. Mouth-watering.
Then came the francescinha. From Wikipedia: Francesinha (meaning little French woman) is a Portuguese sandwich, originally from Porto, made with layers of toasted bread and assorted hot meats such as roast, steak, wet-cured ham, linguiça, or chipolata over which sliced cheese is melted by the ladling of a near-boiling tomato-and-beer sauce called molho de francesinha. It is typically served with French fries and a fried egg on top. They forgot to put the egg on ours, and brought it separately, later. We shared this monstrosity, but more typically it is eaten by one person. A Porto experience not to be missed.
For dessert we each had a “Delícia do Porto” cookie. There had been a competition to design a dessert that captured the spirit of Porto. This was the winner and it represents the heart not only of the city, but of king Dom Pedro IV, which was returned from Brazil to Porto, pickled. Really. The cookies were delicious.
On our way back to the hotel we snapped this picture of the colorful and unusual architecture of Porto.
Elaine stayed at the hotel to rest, and William set off to climb the Clérigos Tower to get a bird’s eye view of Porto.
The Clérigos Tower is part of a baroque church built between 1732 and 1763, the date of the tower’s completion. The tower contains 260 steps.
One must pass around the entire nave of the church (including climbing numerous steps that are not included in the tower step count) to reach the tower. This is the organ.
This picture was taken from the point of view of the people in the previous picture. So, William was right next to the organ at this stage of his climb.
One of many sets of stairs surrounding the nave.
From the rear of the nave – getting higher. You can see that organ in the front right above one of the Christmas trees.
At last William reached the tower stairs and the top of the tower. In this view you can see cruise vessels docked on the Gaia side of the Douro. The Torgil is not among them, as it left on another cruise shortly after we arrived in Porto.
Looking downstream toward the Atlantic Ocean. You can see the Crystal Palace dome, which we were told also can be climbed for a beautiful view. And the Arrábida Bridge that William climbed is also visible in the background.
The view to the north from the Clérigos Tower. The Mercado do Bolhau was out there somewhere. The shadow of the tower is pretty cool.
Trigger warning: William did NOT really fall from the Clérigos Tower. He just bought a trick composite photograph depicting such a fall.
The narrow steps down from the tower.
William returned to the hotel to collect Elaine for an evening explore before dinner.
Christmas decorations in the plaza in front of Porto’s city hall, just down the hill from our hotel.
More Christmas decorations on the plaza.
Porto’s city hall.
Walking downhill, we made our way to the Rua das Flores (avenue of flowers), another pedestrian shopping zone. We stopped at Claus Porto, another Travel Man video discovery.
Claus Porto is a venerable soap manufacturer and seller. It was founded in 1887 by German immigrants to Portugal. They were ultimately expelled during World War I because of their nationality. The business kept the Claus name and was taken over by Portuguese people.
Soaps made over the years by Claus are displayed on the wall near the staircase. They kinda look like sardine cans.
A printing press, for the soap labels (?).
A display of the current soaps including a soap-on-a-rope, which is said to have been invented here.
Elaine at the sink where soaps and lotions can be tried out.
A soap bar making machine. This store was a little museum and lots of fun.
Near the Douro was this beautiful park featuring yet another statue of Henry the Navigator.
Henry the Navigator was baptized in Porto and may have been born there as well. The records are sketchy.
The Igreja de São Francisco next to the Henry statue. It’s a gothic church with baroque interiors, said to be the most ornate in Porto. We wouldn’t know because we were running out of time, and while Elaine could imagine getting up the steps, she couldn’t conceive of getting down them. We’ll visit some other time.
We enjoyed the view of the Douro and Gaia, with the Graham’s sign lit up on the right, to remind us of our first night in Porto. We were running out of time to get to dinner, so we first called an Uber (no show!!), then resorted to a taxi.
We met Kathy and Betty from the Torgil, at Restaurante Escondidinho, which our Torgil waiter André had recommended.
Restaurante Escondidinho was decorated with many plates, some of which were three dimensional. This one depicted their signature seafood stew with clams and mussels showing prominently.
This plate features a three-D lobster. Elaine loved these plates.
Our dinner was the seafood stew and some clams on the side. Yum. This one dish along with the appetizer was plenty to stuff the four of us.
Betty and Kathy after dinner.
Here are the four of us having a good time. Kathy and Betty were following this trip with a month-long cruise through Southeast Asia.
After dinner and lots of hugs, we walked on the Santa Catarina pedestrian shopping street on our way to our hotel, and stopped at Ricami Veronica. It is an Italian shop that does free-hand machine embroidery of various fabric products that they sell.
We were mesmerized by the skill and speed with which this woman could turn out words on fabric.
We eventually made it back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep in preparation for our Porto culinary tour the next day.