Porto

We took an early train out of Coimbra to Porto. Porto is twice the size of Coimbra (yet only half the size of Lisbon), and a new city for me, so I was excited to see it. Final report: Porto did not disappoint. Of course, we were only there for a little over a day, but initial impressions suggest it is a lively city with lots going on.

After a relatively short – and completely punctual – train ride, we dumped our bags at the hotel and stopped for a coffee while we figured out what we wanted to do for the day. I adore the practice of stopping at a cafe patio for a coffee mid-morning. And I adore that the Portuguese believe a coffee is to be enjoyed, unrushed. Americans get their coffee in a paper cup so they can bolt from the coffee shop as quickly as possible, with no assumption that one should savor the beverage.

We walked over to Igreja da Ordem de St Francisco – a Franciscan monk order and church. Again, a whole lotta gold. Technically no photos, but…

Luke spent a lot of time working through his Catholic learnings and history to try to piece things together. I didn’t bother since a church is a church is a church to me, but it’s always amusing when Luke discovers a new rabbit hole to explore.

The main cathedral has been decommissioned. On the property, there’s also a smaller church/chapel, a museum, and a crypt. The crypt had a lot more private burial chambers than I was expecting, but it did have an underground space you look into that was just full of bones. It sounds like there was a lot of cemetery mobility as residents outgrew their burial spaces.

Luxuriously-sized burial chambers in the crypt

At some point in the crypt, we passed the point of being hungry. When we got back outside, we were both feeling cranky and we had a hard time making decisions about lunch. I hate when we miss the window for making decisions!

We eventually settled on a fancy-looking place under an even fancier-looking hotel. This place had veggie options so I was excited! Cauliflower soup with green apple slices (amazing), slivered beets with greens, and – of course – cheese and wine. It was all excellent, and the service was exceptional, so it was a good choice. The only negative was when we had to fight off a pigeon. This bird was circling our table, then hopped on the table next to ours. That behavior isn’t unheard of, but we certainly didn’t then expect the bird to fly onto our table and try to eat our cheese! We had a horrible time swatting the damn thing away (and then keeping it away). So if one of us gets super sick in the next week or so, it very well may be bird flu from the pigeon who tried to eat our wine and cheese.

After defending our lunch, we headed off to the Porto Cathedral.

Many of the columns and walls were colorfully painted

Gorgeous ceilings (although with more heads on them than I typically prefer)

Predictably, it started raining shortly after we left the cathedral, so we walked a bit and then found a comfy place to grab a beer and wait out the rain.

When the rain let up, we went to the hotel to freshen up before going out for a late dinner at Gruta, a little Portuguese-Brazilian fusion restaurant that was praised as having some of the best fish in Porto. Wow, those reviews were not kidding! I had croaker (I’d describe it as a sea bass or durado relative) in a roasted red pepper and coconut milk sauce that was simply amazing. Luke had a rice dish with some special Portuguese shrimp. Desserts were similarly spectacular. Luke’s was a meringue with wasabi ice cream and port-soaked cherries, and mine was a cassava cake with caramelized coconut and honey-drizzled cheese. They sound wild, but I assure you, they worked.