Portugal Diary - EXPLORING WITH ALLY

PORTO - Day 2

9/28/2019

Waking up not hungry in the slightest as we had eaten our body weight in food last night we opted for a beautiful long lie and movies in bed. At about 10am we started to get peckish and got ready for day of walking the city, exploring the areas we didn’t manage yesterday.

We planned to go to Zenith, which from the reviews I highly recommend BUT we didn’t get there in time so the line was down the street and we decided to give it a miss as I was hangry. We would have loved to have tried it though if we weren’t leaving tomorrow. We ended up around the corner in a beautiful bakery but with the worst service imaginable. I left pretty hungry and a little angry as I hate more than anything spending money on food when it’s not worth it.

However, regardless the fact I was feeling a little low and down and still hungry I found this bear a couple of times on our walk and for some reason hugging a gigantic bear in the morning makes you feel so much better. We then headed off on a huge walk across the St Luis bridge to the other side of the river and walk towards the ocean. It’s a good 7km from our house but the walk is totally beautiful and well worth it. The village is called Afurada and it is a wonderful fishermen village just outside Porto which is still not damaged by tourism, so it’s a great place to spend an afternoon eating seafood and getting away from the city and the herds of tourists.

We started the walk back to town when we spotted the tram and instantly knew this would be how we would make our way back into the city. The only other city in Portugal where these trams are still active is Lisbon. A single ride on the tram costs €3.50 and a return (or two journeys within 1 day) costs €6.00. There is a two-day unlimited tram pass for is €10 but we only used it for the one journey back into town. It is so much fun but be prepared to get your photo taken thousands of times by passing tourists in the street as the tram drives past.

It was now 2pm and lunch time so we stopped at Taberna Da Se and it was really, really good. Literally about 10 steps from the Cathedral is this beautiful medieval restaurant hidden down an alley which serves great Tapas, Sangria and is pretty brilliantly priced. For $30NZD we got some Tapas to share, salad, beer and sangria and sat enjoying the sun!

To continue on with our food journey we stopped at the wine cellar and I tried for the very first time ‘Ginja de Obios’ – sour cherry liqueur served in a dark chocolate cup. TRY THIS…TRY THIS NOW! It is so amazing. We had a couple while people watching and finished with some famous Port and coffee.
As we have spent a shit load of money this past week, we headed to the Supermarket to get a picnic for dinner and breaky for the following morning – definitely saved about $50NZD doing this method and the Parma ham and cheese is so cheap here, so along with beers and custard tarts we only spent 14 EURO!