Day 5 - North of Porto

Wednesday, November 13th

North of Porto

We were up at a reasonable hour and at breakfast by 8:00. We set out walking, across the bridge to grab our car and head out of town, and noticed the horrible traffic. It took about 20 minutes to get out of the garage and back over the bridge, since again we couldn’t take the road Google wanted.





Once we got out of the city to the North, traffic was fine and the toll road was a normal ticket/cash road. Phew. No more accumulating tolls when I'm not sure they are going to be easily paid.



We again headed off into the mountains and climbed some narrow roads on our way to our first stop, the Celtic settlement at Citânia de Briteiros. We were the first ones there.






Yes, we had the place to ourselves.









The foundations of simple round dwellings dotted the landscape. There are about 100 dwellings here.







Quite a cool site. This one looks cozy, but on second thought, we'll keep our nice room in Porto.








Wow! We were the only ones there the whole time, and the views were spectacular. This was the view in the other direction, from the inner wall.






There were actually several defensive walls around the settlement; this was just the innermost one.





A road. Not a Roman Road, just a little rougher. This Celtic settlement actually predated the Roman occupation of Iberia by a few hundred years, and the inhabitants coexisted with the Romans when they were here.






Can you imagine having your home here? The view is incredible. This mountain is called São Romão, and the valley it overlooks is the River Ave Valley.






I think this was another defensive wall.








The Chapel was built later, in the Middle Ages.








An attempt by modern archaeologists to reconstruct a few dwellings.

The setting is amazing and this site is well worth a visit. After spending an hour or so, we headed off for the nearby city of Guimarães.





I found a nice parking spot on the street for free, within view of the castle, so that’s where we started.









The inside of castle itself was pretty rustic.







Not much to see but the views from the ramparts were pretty.







So we wandered around enjoying it.








We could see the Paço dos Duques de Bragança just a bit down the hill from us. That was also on our list.







But first, a few more castle shots.









OK, time for the next stop.









We spent more time in the Paço dos Duques de Bragança next door.






Lots of interesting artifacts. This rug is somehow special but I have forgotten why.








A nice interior courtyard








Lots of tapestries, including some by Rubens.









Nice dining table. Maybe we should grab lunch?







They had a torture museum there too but it was an upcharge to see it, and we’d already seen a few of those, so we passed.








Off to the next stop!







We wandered the city on our way to the old part, enjoying the architecture. This is the Palácio da Justiça.

We entered this square, which had a distinctly medieval feel. What a cool place!






Time for lunch! I tried a local craft beer. Very nice, and lots of yeast sediment in the glass. Chris was happy with a local white wine.







We shared some seared shishito peppers,








and some garlic shrimp. Just what we were looking for.








What a cool setting to enjoy some delicious food!








After lunch, we peeked into the nearby church, the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Oliveira, for a photo.

Then we went to the Martins Saramento museum (he was the architect who excavated the Celtic settlement) only to find that they were closed for lunch until 2:30. Damn. We regrouped in the nearby square, Largo do Toural, with a distinctly modern statue made of discarded bicycles.




What to do? We didn’t want to wait that long, so back to the car and back to Porto we went. We passed this cool fountain along the way.






And another view of Guimarães Castle. Our car was still there, always a plus when parking on the street for free.






The traffic got ugly as we approached the north side of Porto, and yet again Google wanted me to take the closed road. So I forced another reroute and it was slow going. But we got back to the parking garage (the close one this time) by 3:30 and this time, we were in luck. We found a spot rather easily! Awesome – now maybe we’d have time to explore Porto a little bit.

Unfortunately, our hotel was doing some kind of disaster drill, so we couldn’t go to our room. A bit annoying, but we headed out for a quick run through Porto. This "Cube Fountain" was just outside our hotel door.






First we went to the Sé to enjoy the views from the terrace. The uphill climb was slow going. We had been running around quite a bit and it was catching up to us. But we pushed on.



Nice views of the Pillory, from the Terrace. We decided that we'd go into the church and climb the tower for the views. It took a minute to find the bell tower, but we did. The entrance is right above the cloisters.
























Nice views, and a good overview of the city,


















And we saw people walking on the top level of the nearby Ponte Luis I.








The evening rays of sun lit the cathedral nicely.







The cloisters were fairly quiet.









Time for a quick run through the interior of the cathedral.

Then we headed out,

And decided to join the crowds on the top deck of Ponte Luis I.







Same views as from the lower level, but the vantage point is higher. Looking out on the Baixa District.

The view east, along the Douro. We will be headed in this direction tomorrow.







There is a funicular that runs from the river to the upper city.







The views from the bridge were nice but you have to watch out for the trams every few minutes. Luckily they are slow so you have plenty of time to get out of the way.





After our whirlwind tour of Porto was done, we walked back (mostly downhill) towards our hotel. There is a market here, the Mercado Ferreira Borges, in a former train station.







And the Bolsa Palace. That was supposed to be open until 5:00. It was about 4:58...could we sneak in, and extend our tour of the city?






We made it! Looks like there is some kind of convention going on.

We took a few pictures and headed out.






Then we found one more place we could visit – the Casa do Infante. This was a museum about Portuguese exploration, which had some exhibits about Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese colonies of the Age of Exploration, and a few other assorted exhibits. The building was originally a mint.

It was open until 5:30, so we grabbed tickets and spent about 20 minutes there. Finally, we had a minute to relax in our room for a bit, and make dinner plans.


Now it was time to do some wine tasting. We were told about one place that should be open, but it wasn’t, so we ended up next door at Kopke. We'd liked their wines yesterday at Uvo.

They were winding down and didn’t want to do a full tasting, but we ordered glasses of wine and sat by the window, sipping and enjoying.



We bought a few bottles of wine and dropped them off at the hotel. Nice view of the river along the way - even a cruise boat! Yeah, that could have been us, but we are seeing so much more our way.




The riverfront district (Ribeira) at night. Lots of cafes with a view along the pedestrianized Cais da Ribeira.






Finally we went to dinner at a restaurant called Mistu. Another amazing bunch of dishes – we started with two kinds of ceviche for appetizers. This one was tuna with ginger and avocado. We also had salmon with passionfruit.





Then suckling pig (shown) and a beef dish for mains, with a nice bottle of red.








We had dessert for good measure. Why not - two glasses of white wine, four nice plates, a bottle of red, and dessert was about €110. It may have been the most expensive meal of the trip, and it was worth more.



We walked home, full and content. Luckily it was all downhill and we didn’t have to exert ourselves much after all the climbing we’d been doing. We have been going full throttle all week.

Finally, I had some news about the electronic tolls! The first two days' journeys were showing up on my account, with the correct totals, but they weren’t paid yet. The €20 toll card I'd purchased was active, though, so fingers crossed that this will work. We can always hope for the best.

Tomorrow is our last day in Portugal, because we drive along the Douro to Salamanca tomorrow. Only one more day of Portuguese tolls to sweat about.