Wednesday October 8th
Last day of our cruise and the weather eventually cracked up late afternoon with some misty rain and wind. Not such a bumpy night on board last night but still rocky – not so sure about cruising the Atlantic!
Oporto is the port about 30 mins from Porto city itself so a nice ride into city along the waterfront, lots of very old houses again and the vestiges of old city walls. Nice looking beaches with both sand and rock piles. Many of houses have tiles, both plain colours and patterned, typical of Portugal, and like those previously seen in Lisbon. The tiles were used to help insulation as granite somewhat porous at times. Some great tiles at both the Railway Station and the Cathedral. Many houses and buildings under restoration and also buildings of importance such as the High Tower (1763) on Clerigos Church. Much is funded by EU. Apparently there used to be lookouts on the tower and four bells with different tones – a different tone would be rung to signal events- eg fire, flood.
The Douro River runs through the city, known for being tricky to navigate at its mouth to the sea, due to hidden rocks. Boats have long used the river though especially for transporting Port wine for which this city is most well known. Special boats known as “rabelo” were adapted for this purpose and to suit the river conditions.
Good exercise again walking around the city which is quite hilly so affords panoramic views across orange tiled rooftops and the old and new parts of town. The Port wine lodges have their names sitting on top of their buildings (most in Gaia area) so quite a characteristic feature when you look out from vantage points. We did of course visit a Port wine lodge – Burmester and sample some wares. Very nice. Interestingly, women were not legally allowed to drink wine here in public until 1975, so white Port wine was produced and the women used to drink this from porcelain teacups.
We had a visit to the fabulous Livaria Lello Bookstore, opened 1906, said to be one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. Truly magnificent! Looks of beautiful wood, the staircase is a work of art and so are the walls and the stained glass ceiling but unfortunately no photos allowed so check out the link below (others on Google). Has a coffee shop on the second floor where JK Rowling spent time when she lived in Porto for 10 years. The store is said to have inspired the Harry Potter stories and the Hogwarts library is modelled on this. See what you think.
Have enjoyed having “afternoon tea” on the boat – old style. Today we had a great chat with a Turkish couple who had visited NZ, hiring a car and driving around for two weeks. Nice to meet some well-informed tourists.
