How to Squeeze a Week into Three Days

Combria. What kind of town has a jail inside its borders and one that is right beside a major university? When you see the jail’s cobblestone roads, turret, and palm trees it is hard to remember that it is a jail. Although, having lived without central heating for a while now the thought of rooms in a stone building have no romance for me. Di, Ro, and I looked like crazy tourists. Here we were taking pictures of a jail. It looked remarkably similar to the crumbling castles and stone churches that are found in every town you stop in Europe.

We had our guidebooks and our town maps to direct our wanderings. We headed through the Botanical Gardens of the University, the University of Coimbra, along the old city wall and the Mondego River bank and then when the day was ending we made our way to the centro commerical. Hello H&M! I have been wearing the same four pair of pants and three skirts all winter. At H&M I added a new skirt, new pair of pants, and four new t-shirts. All for under 50 euros! While we were travelling thru Spain and Portugal our first stop in every town has been the Turismo Information building. They will answer questions in english and provide maps. Just follow the target signs, if you can.

Signs and traffic circles make European driving a challenge. It all seems easy. You look for the town you want, you plot a course on your map and off you go. Then the city you are looking for falls off the signs, the traffic circle confuses you, and the guy behind you is blinking his lights to pass because you are only going 140 km/hr and you are not sure where you put the toll ticket you picked up at the entrance to the highway… But, enough about our drive to Coimbra.

The next day we headed off to Porto, or Oporto as it is known on the map. This is a seriously old city, and I had my guidebook with me to fill Di and Ro in on all sorts of friendly facts. Like the story about the Revolt of the Drunks. There is a revolution to get behind. Our first stop was to be Vila Nova de Gaia. Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto are separated by the Douro River. There, along the riverbank, are all the Port houses. Although this was our destination, we ended up there quite by accident. After half an hour of driving in circles and getting lost in narrow windy streets we decided to head into Porto. We could see the Don Luis Bridge which connects to two cities. It bares more than a passing resemblance to the Effiel Tower. Which is probably because one of Eiffel’s students built it. We just had to figure out how to get onto it. While we were trying to get to the bridge we drove right in front of the port houses and there was a parking spot waiting for us. A shout out to the parking gods! Poor Ro. Our tour of the port house was very touristy. A man in a cape recited the history of Sandeman sherry and port in heavily accented English to us, and 15 of our closest family and friends. There was nothing very local or even Portuguese about it. We got to see the kegs, hear the lecture and watch a movie about the history of Port and the region. The saving grace for Ro was the free port at the end of the tour.

Then we were off to Porto. After we settled into our hotel for the night we headed out to see the town. The center of Porto is odd. There doesn’t seem to be a plan to maintain the fantastic old buildings that line the streets. And at street level it is not uncommon to see the bottom two floors of a building abandoned with crumbling walls. Then when you look up you the top floors of the building will have laundry hanging out and lovely plants climbing down the walls. My old strata council would have a stroke at the sight of some of the balconies. Laundry! And out of control plant growth! You walk through some really abandon streets and the grey stone buildings seem to soak up any light the little streetlights put out. That along with the buckets of rain we experienced made for a ghostly evening.

We wandered past the Sao Bento train station, city hall, the fanciest McDonalds I have ever seen and ended up down on the shores of the Douro river. While we were wandering along the rain started. I rained so hard you could have stayed dryer standing in your shower. So we headed into a restaurant for dinner and to try and warm up. I think the fact that they were playing a football/soccer game on the television swayed the decision making process.

After dinner we had to hike up the wet streets to get back to our hotel. Roberto has a great internal compass. I was lost. But for Ro leading the way, I would have been lost in the bowels of Porto forever. I will confess. I didn’t believe in him, and was ready to hop a cab, but just when I lost all faith we ended up back at our hotel. Tired, damp and full.

The next day was equally busy. We managed to see Torre dos Clerigos, Oporto Cathedral, Lello Bookstore, Igreja dos Clerigos, and Palacio de Cristal. These feet were made for walkin’. All that and then we headed back to Nazare. This time the drive went a little faster. We made it back in time to go out for dinner and drinks with friends. Di and Ro chose to go home at a better hour than I did. I ended up at Abiliu’s café Concerto until way too late listening to the Spanish Guitar and Portuguese singing. Anyone heading to town should check it out. The address is Ru Gil Vicente, 38. Or you can call me and I can meet you there if you want.

And Kootenay missed it all. She stayed home and had a sleep over with her friends Spock, Sofi and Vitor. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a dog.