Porto
We had arrived in Leixoes on the Saturday lunchtime. The
plan was to spend the Sunday exploring the city of Porto and a visit to a Port
Wine cellar!
The marina was quite a walk from anywhere, 15mins to the
little adjacent town and about 20mins walk to the metro on the other side of
the river. Interestingly the marina claimed to have Wi-Fi but we never managed
to get a good connection for very long.
Our marina is behind the container port on the left
A 20min walk later and an altercation with an automatic
ticket machine which took our money but didn’t issue us a ticket, we finally
managed to buy tickets and boarded the tram to the city centre. I suppose we
should have asked where to get off and find tourist information at the marina
office, however we got off at what looked like the city centre and asked for
tourist information.
Commercial district
By a stroke of luck we had got off at the right stop and
tourist info was a short walk away. At the information office a very helpful
young man suggested that we didn’t take a bus tour (at €20 each ) but he
pointed out the main sites and suggested we could walk. So it was to be the architecture of the main
commercial district, town hall, Cathedral and old town, bridge across the
river, lunch at a cafe looking back to the old town and a Port wine cellar tour
with tasting to finish off!
Views from the Cathedral
If you are not fit before you get to Porto you will be after
your visit, it was up and down hill all day. Porto is a town of contrasts –
some very imposing buildings, old and new, cheek by jowl with high rise
residences also old and new. Some of them are well kept some in a very poor
state , others are right next to a completely derelict building. You feel they
would fall down if not joined to the neighbours. It is all very interesting
with loads of history. We saw one 19thC house which inside has remains of Iron
Age, Roman and Medieval settlements.
Porto Contrasts
The day climaxed with a tasting of 5 different styles of
Port. (15 year old LBV, Ruby, white, a 12 and 5 year old Tawny). The history of
port is fascinating, a totally British invention adding brandy (now clear
spirit) to keep the wine on the long sea journey back to the UK. French wine
was either heavily taxed or we were at war with France.
Lunchtime view
We visited the Offley wine cellars who have been making port
since 1737 and learnt all about their history and James Forrester who was made a
Baron by the King of Portugal.He did a lot for the wine trade including making
the first map of the Douro river, studying diseasesof the vines and growing
requirements and he was also an artist. Interestingly, the majority of port
wine producers are still UK family owned.
Not even I could drink that lot!
The Port wine Caves
The town as viewed from the bridge
Having being exhausted by Porto we got the metro back.
Tomorrow shopping was to be more mundane as we needed to victual the boat for
the next few days and fill up with diesel. Our next few stops would just be
overnight with no real opportunity to refuel or replenish our supplies.
The beach at Leixoes
After our shopping trip we walked back along the lovely beach
adjacent to the marina. A pity the Atlantic water is so cold.
Seen in the Marina - We never found out what plan A was!
No comments:
Post a Comment