Day 7: When schemes gang aft a-gley

As Burns noted, the best laid plans are often not enough. We started today with a long lie and a lovely breakfast of scrambled egg sandwiches. We spent some time developing our plans for the day: street markets! A little Googling showed a list of street markets, many of which only appear on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays and lo an behold, it appears to be the 4th Saturday! So we created a special Google map and set out to see what the day held.

And it held some dissappointments. Either the market folks don’t count Saturdays the same way I do or there is a different idea of what street markets are here but we were sad nonetheless. The Porto Belo market, named for the famous one in London, was a dozen stalls – nothing like it’s namesake. A few other places had similar small gatherings but they yeilded no joy for us. One small bright spot: in our wanderings we came across a completely gluten free coffee shop! We stopped for a coffee and some baked goods but the outside seats were all full and inside the shop was still very warm so there was no relief from the sweatiness. Good chocolate cake though!

So the next plan: see some historical things! We chose the nearest church, the Carmo and Carmelitas churches and went to see some sights. Now I’m generally not picky about how people choose to worship but holy moses – this place was Baroque on steriods! Every nook and cranny was filled with a lifesize sad and bloody Jesus looking down at the congregation. There was an entire corridor filled with crucifixes which is both reverent and creepy. Definitely not my kind of place!

So it was time to head towards the river and spend a little more time in the Rebiera neighborhood – there were a few street market stalls . Then we wandered across the famed Ponte de Dom Luis I bridge to the other side of the Douro river. The scenery (and the breeze!) as you walk across is just lovely. All the port wineries are on this side so there is a lively cafe scene as well. And we found a small market where some cork trinkets were purchased. (Seriously, they will make ANYTHING out of cork here!). Then it was time for lunch at one of said cafes. Frank is back in full fish mode so he opted for the seafood salad. I went for the chicken with mustard sauce – and of course the requisite bottle of vinho verde. Yum!!

Back across the bridge we went but bellies full of food and wine meant that climbing the hills back to up to town was less than appealing so we took the funicular instead. Easiest two minutes to cover 281 meters! We only had a few hours before heading out for our sunset cruise so we decided to hop on one of the ubiquitous tuk tuk tours to see what we could learn about the city. We ended up in a faux model T with Eli who spent the next 90 minutes telling us some history and some folk lore. We learned about how the marriage of Phillippa of Lancaster to King John I of Portugal led to a treaty to give England special rights over the port industry – which is why the most famous ports have English names.

We traveled to the mouth of the Duoro river and off to the seaside areas with the BIG houses. We climbed up and down the streets in the old town, scattering tourists as we went. All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon. Then back to the flat to freshen up and get an uber to the marina for our highly anticipated sunset sailing cruise. We waited at the appointed place and notices that no one else was waiting with us. A quick check of the tickets revealed that I had messed up the date and that our cruise was on SUNDAY night, not SATURDAY night. D’oh! So another uber back to town – grrrr – for dinner and another shot at laying better plans for tomorrow.

Scenes from across Porto: