It’s a Sunday in a very catholic country so we have few expectations of finding a lot of fun things to do. So it’s time to get in the car and explore the countryside! Our tour guide yesterday mentioned a town just north that is considered the birthplace of Portgual because it’s where the first king of Portgual was born. So off to Guimarães we go!
The day started cool and cloudy which was a nice change from the relentless sun and heat. We arrived in town to see every street decorated with lights preparing for the upcoming city festival. I’d LOVE to see this place lit up. The town square is broad and open and was full of older folks sitting chatting. There wasn’t an outside table at a cafe to be found. We settled for one inside and had a quick coffee while we got our bearings. Then it was time to explore.
First the Palace of the Dukes of Bragança and the neigboring castle. We were quite impressed with the 15th century palace until we realised that it was mostly rebuilt in the 1950s so it wasn’t *really* that well preserved. Coming from a place with so many castles and palaces in various states of ruin or preservation may have made us a bit jaded. But we explored nonetheless. I did like the very stark church where Afonso Henriques, who went on to be the first king of Portugal was baptised in the 12th century.
Meanwhile, as we wandered around town we got an email that our sunset cruise had been cancelled due to problems with the boat. Yes, the cruise we showed up for a day early was not to be so we’d need to find another way to experience the Douro river. After our short break in the hills north of Porto, the sun had come out and we headed back to Porto. Lunch at a cafe in the Ribeira where Frank tried the local “delicacy” – Francesinha. You can google the official description but here’s mine: two slices of Wonderbread with a sliced hot dog, sausage and roast beef in between. Layer on some sliced cheese and cover the whole thing with some tomato soup and viola! I was happed with some grilled chicken to go with my white sangria, thank you very much.
Thus fully fed, we wandered the river front to find a replacement boat trip for our cancelled cruise. There are several tour companies that offer a “6 bridges” tour of the mouth of the Douro so we chose the last one of the day – 7.30pm – to get as close to sunset as we could. Then it was time for more history stuff. Being a little done with some of the baroque “bloody Jesus” decor of some of the churches we’d seen so far, we opted for the Monument Church Of St Francis – a gothic church in town known as “the gold church” because of the amount of gold filligree used in the decoration. Holy shiny object Batman, this place is over the top! They didn’t allow photographs so I had to steal one from the interweb (Thank you and credit to Romin’ Roman where ever you are). Now I understand why the reformation happened! This place is unbelievable – the picture can’t possibly capture the sheer magnitutde of the ugly Baroque-ness of the interior. I can picture Martin Luther and John Knox taking one look and saying “Seriously? You need all this bling for God? No thank you.”
We had done a fair amount of walking and gotten pretty icky so we opted to return to the flat for a quick shower and change of clothes before our river cruise. We arrived early, as requested, to see that the 7pm boat hadn’t left yet. At 7.15, the tour operator let us know that there was a problem with the boat they were going to use for the 7.30 cruise so they needed to cancel it and could we join the delayed 7pm cruise instead? (What is it with me and boats this trip?) So we did and finally got to see the sights from the river.
We finished up with a fantastic dinner at an Italian restaurant that got rave reviews on my GF app and it did not dissapoint. Some of the best risotto I have ever had! The requisit bottle of vinho verde to accompany it and then it was off to bed.
Data for today:
- Steps: 20,897 (or 9.9 miles)
- Floors: 31
- Kilometers driven: 148
- Downhill change in level that Google considers “mostly flat”: 73 meters!
- Number of stairs required to head back up the “mostly flat” route: 126
The Cannon Family's travel blog 