Porto

This past weekend saw us head to Portugal. Initially flying into Porto, we thought we'd check out Lisbon (Lisboa) for a day as well, so we got to experience delightful Portugese busses for a fairly lengthy journey as you can tell by the map. And by delightful, I mean rather average, wholly unremarkable. Not sure why I attempted the sarcasm there -- well, yes I am. It's habitual.

In any event, the whole of Portugal that we were able to witness was lovely, and the weather was spectacular. I am glad indeed that I brought at least one pair of shorts with me. I have a feeling they may be getting a lot of use next weekend in Espana as well. Day one in Porto saw us check into our hotel, and then wander down to the river. Since it was just about 11 AM, we felt as though we were getting behind the locals in terms of wine consumption. So we sat ourselves down at a nice little riverside cafe and had the best Sangria I've ever tasted. This stuff was delicious -- smooth, tasty, and quite refreshing in the hot sun. In fact, the Sangria was so good, we more or less abandoned any plans we had for the rest of the day, and spent much of it sitting at that cafe, until we decided to take a river cruise. Spectacularly, it was only 10 Euros for about an hour of zipping about. That more or less sums up the extent of our day.

Day 2 we decided to take some tours of the port wineries, which Porto is famous for. After some confusion on the directions, we arrived at half past 10, eager to learn all about the process. I must confess to being non-plussed by my experiences with port beforehand, but I have now seen the light and am reformed. And now let me offer a piece of marketing advice in the mold of my father. Some clever winery should offer small, lightweight, and easy to carry sample packs of port wine, and call it Portability. But I digress. Perhaps the most famous winery, Sandeman, had awful wine and a lame overproduced tour. After three tours, most of our group tuckered out and returned to the Sangria place across the river. Myself and John continued on,
exploring the Ferreira winery. They were the clear winner of the day in terms of tours and tastings at the winery. Their tour was informative and their samples were actually quite good. I also answered a question correctly on the tour winning for myself a 3rd glass to taste.

After Ferreira, John and I decided to explore the area, getting ourself fully lost and then finding we had quite by accident ended up right where we began. This could only mean one thing -- it was time to try more port. We found a little shop along the river near these wineries that sold all different types of the port, and it was quite inexpensive. We saddled up to the bar, and started the sampling. Lagrima, Ruby, 10 year tawny, 20 year tawny, 1986 Colheita, and one other I can't quite recall. The whole thing came out to less than 10 euros a piece for some unbelievably good port. I don't understand why the wineries don't give you samples of this, because I was ready to buy a bottle on the spot after tasting the 10 year. The 20 year was divine, I only wish I had been fully sober by the time we ordered it. I've never experienced a stronger aftertaste (of caramel no less). Needless to say, I picked up a bottle of Kopke 10 year tawny at duty free on the way home. And of course, after a day experiencing the local flavors, there was only one suitable place for dinner: Pizza Hut. One family style stuffed crust pizza for two later, we headed back toward the hotel, running into the rest of our group at the Imperial McDonalds getting softserve. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this branch of Ronald's McArmy. The building was quite beautiful, and the soft-serve didn't appear to be taking anyone away on trains,
but I still figured I'd be better off not asking any questions. Those deep fryers could cause some serious pain. I also mentally noted it as a decent spot to hole up in event of a zombie attack.

Lisbon. Not a whole lot to say about it except that we saw some really crappy contemporary art (the kind of shit where they put up a blank canvass and call it art), were offered drugs constantly, I figured out that my camera can do cool things, like take a mostly black and white picture with one color highlighted, and there was a pretty cool castle. Oh, and on the way to Lisbon we went through Fatima, which was having a huge festival and I think the pope was there. Really, the trip to Lisbon just showed how much new money is coming into Portugal. Their infrastructure has clearly been upgraded recently. Their highways were all new and pristine, their light rail systems were well run and clean, and new construction like whoa on the outskirts of cities.

Picture Time!
(Pictures aren't able to upload right now. I guess. I'll get them a little later.)