Another casual start this morning with the arrangement to meet in the lobby at 9.00 am to meet up with our local guide for a walking tour of Porto. The tour will end down at the river where we will take a boat ride on the river.
Having met our guide, and after a brief introduction to Porto in the square outside the hotel, we head off to our first stop, The Sao Bento Railway Station. The railway station was built on the site of an old Benedictine Monastery and took its name from the monastery.
Porto Railway Station.
Inside the building is unlike any railway station I have ever seen, with walls lavishly decorated with ceramic tiles telling stories of Portuguese history.
After a probably to detailed history of the building we moved on into Rua das Flores,"Flower Street", a street we will follow down in the direction of the river.
There are many historic buildings, shops, restaurants etc along the way.
The entrance to Flower Street
At the end of the street we visited a church which is now privately owned and no longer functions as a working church. Very austere on the outside, the inside was a mass of baroque style wood carved gilt decorations, reportedly containing 400 kgs of gold (a bit of a myth I think). No photos were allowed.
Nearby was a park with a statue of Henry the Navigator.
We then continued on down to the river, which is quite a steep descent.
Once down on the river bank, the place is packed with restaurants and companies providing river boat rides.
Our boat soon arrived by the dockside and we boarded for our exclusive river tour (we had our own boat)
We had plenty of room on board and it was easy to hear the commentary
The Douro River runs through a surprisingly deep gorge through Porto and is crossed by many bridges.
This bridge was designed by Gustave Eiffel before he designed the Eiffel Tower
The Porto side of the river is best seen from the water
Our boat rip took us near to the harbour entrance to the Atlantic Ocean, before turning back
On the opposite side of the river to Porto is Gaia, where all of the famous Portuguese Port wine producers are established. Whilst the wine is produced much further up the Douro River, the maturation and blending takes place in Gaia ( I guess because it was close to the port).
All of the famous companies are based on this side of the river including Sandeman, who we can thank for Mateus Rose.
Our boat dropped us off on the Gaia side of the river, where we were met by our bus to take us to one of Portugal's most famous port producers, Taylors.
On arrival we embark on a cellar tour to hear about the history of the company and their winemaking philosophy.
Emerging from the cellar
After our tour we had to have the compulsory tasting, with Portuguese snacks. They have developed new products, white and rose port, to try and attract the younger generation. The white port (made from white grapes) was served on the rocks or with tonic water (I thought the tonic improved it greatly). Anyway , apparently both are doing well in the UK.
Having survived the tasting (and food), it was time for lunch. We settled in to a 3 course lunch with table wine, including desert served with a vintage port.
The view of Porto from the wine tasting terrace was pretty good
On the way back to the hotel we had the option of being dropped off to see Porto's famous bookshop Lello's. It is claimed that JK Rowling conceived the Harry Potter books from a visit there when she was living here married for a short time to a Portuguese man. The bookshop lives off the publicity and the launch of the latest book there was a huge deal.
We visited because we were were given a ticket as part of our tour. There were very long queues at the ticket office (it costs 3 euros to visit a bookshop !!!).
Lello's Bookshop
Looking down from the Upper Floor
A narrow staircase leads you upstairs
The ceiling
It is a masterful piece of marketing. Ever since they started charging people to enter, there are queues to get in. It is a nice but not stunning bookshop.
Our bookshop visit was brief, as there was little to see, and we walked back to the hotel, doing a bit of shopping along the way.
Dinner tonight was on us, and we were quite full from our decadent lunch at Taylors.
We ended up walking up the road from the hotel to a very nice cafe, Cafe Guarany, which had a very talented pianist providing nice background music. A bowl of seafood pasta was more than enough to fill us up.
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