Uncategorized

The age of Discovery and discovering more locally…

Day 2: Porto, Portugal

Today was, as Siri reminds me, supposed to be a ‘rest day’ to prepare us to start our Camino tomorrow.  So I’m realizing it is past 11 pm and we are both dead tired from learning ‘everthing you wanted to know about Portugal’, to visiting the tallest point/building (clergy Tower – one block away), to tasting a full round of Porto wine (thought it was for sipping, but no, there were a full 5 pours – to share fortunately between us), to visiting ‘the most beautiful book store in the world’ (spoiler alert – very nice, but a bit hard to to live up to the name), to finishing the evening with a wonderful hole in the wall, or actual underground cave of a real Portugal restaurant, and then having late evening tea with four pilgrims from England and Belgium doing 5 days along the coast.  Whew.

Glad we got that day of rest.

Instead of the original idea of telling you the origin of Portugal from Porto (city we are in) and Cale (city across the Douro river, now called Gaia), Porto-Cale became Portugal, and according to our Porto (free walking tour) Guide Fiel (Faith) it started with an epic battle or it was won through a traditional jousting tournament in the 1100’s from other kings that would go onto create Spain.   Main takeaways, Portugal has a rich history as the country of discovery (called the ‘age of discovery, even though people were already there…) from Europe and had colonies on 4 continents by the 15th – 16th century.  Amazing history.  Instead I thought it would just be enough to share some photos since most of it you can just Google these stories, or better yet – talk/text or email us – if really interested.

Start the day outside the Clerígos (Clergy) Tower – highest point in Porto, 2 blocks from our hostel, that we would climb by the end of the day – built in 1770’s.
Famous Lion Fountain – some believe that JK Rowling (who lived here as English teacher from 1991-93) got some of her ideas, including logo from Gryffindor house, from Porto
Famous São Bento train station with 20,000 hand maid Azulejos tiles showing history of Portugal.  Here is our guide, Fiel, telling us about the jousting tournament, behind the tiles to his left that depict the major battle –  which one is the true history of how Portugal broke from future Spanish Kings? Who knows…
A lovely flight of Port wines
Add some cheese and Iberian ham and I would call that a full meal
Our view after the 200+ steps up the Clerigo Tower, with our hostel just below us to the far right, and river Douro in the background.
A tradditional Portuguese dinner of pork, clams, and potatoes along with only a half (?) mug of wine each) probably should have asked how big a ‘mug’ was first.
Local street art
The now famous world’s most beautiful Porto Book Store and its circular wooden stairwell that had an admission ticket and line to get in
Final view of the evening, walking back to our hotel.

Tomorrow we pack our final day packs and send our remaining one pack to our next destination and the next part of our adventure begins.  We will start with a trip to the cathedral to stamp our pilgrim credentials and then begin our Camino in earnest with a walk along the coast for several miles. 

Thanks for everyone’s support and advice along this journey.

Bom caminho!

Unknown's avatar

Published by

sirianddavid

Siri and David live in Redmond, Washington, and enjoy living, traveling, and learning about different cultures.

One thought on “The age of Discovery and discovering more locally…”

  1. Love these updates and photos! Doesn’t sound like a very restful ‘rest’ day, but so many cool things to do! Can’t wait to hear how your first day goes.

    Hugs,

    Julie

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment