Tuesday, May 1, 2018

My Last Days In And Around Porto

I finally managed to get some walking socks in Porto, at a place called CampingShop. And I managed to conduct the whole transaction in Portuguese, which I was proud of. The guy there convinced me that their merino wool socks would be too hot for my feet, so I compromised and bought one pair of synthetic socks for warm weather, and one merino wool blend for cold weather. But the one pair of merino wool socks I already had haven't been overheating my feet; they've been just fine.  I've been using the new warm weather pair, and they are OK, but they don't seem as cushioned as the nice pair I brought with me.


I took a bunch of day trips my last few days in Porto.  Porto is pretty awesome, but I wanted to see some of the surrounding area too. On Sunday, I went to Matosinhos, which is a little bit northwest of Porto, right on the Atlantic Ocean coast, and it has an awesome beach. It is in the Porto municipality; in Portugal, municipalities are sort of like counties.  Then, later that day, I visited Vila Nova de Gaia (sometimes just called Gaia), which is right across the Douro River from Porto. It was lightly raining in the afternoon, and I found a little Italian restaurant down an alley in Gaia where I had one of the best calzones I've ever had in my life. I mostly wandered in the park, snd then by the Douro River.


The next day, I went to Guimarães, which is a little bit farther. It's pretty easy to take day trips in the trains in Portugal, for the most part, and you can just buy tickets in the station that day for most. There are some destinations where it is a little more involved; you might have to buy advance tickets. But if a destination is on an urban or intercity line, the tickets will be cheap and simple. I might write another blog post on the subject of Portugal's trains because I have their whole system figured out pretty well. But, anyway, I went to Guimarães for a little over €3 each way, and just bought the tickets at the São Bento train station in Porto. When I got to Guimarães, the weather was completely schizo. It would pour rain for about fifteen minutes, and then get completely sunny, like, not a cloud in the sky, and then stay pouring again. I was really getting tired of this, though I toughed it out for a good portion of the day. I visited Guimarães Castle and Paso dos Duques, and walked around the town a good deal.  Guimarães is known as the "birthplace of Portugal" because Portugal's first king, King Afonso I, was born there in 1110 in the castle, and the first county of Portugal (not a county in the American sense, but one overseen by a count) was centered around that area. 


But in the late afternoon, the next rainstorm came in with a ton of thunder and lightning, and I thought, OK, that's it, I'm heading back.  I headed to the Guimarães train station, but the next train wasn't coming for quite a while, so I walked around some more, and the thunder and lightning had dissipated. Nevertheless, I took the next train back to Porto.


The next day, I went to Vila do Conde, just north of Porto, early in the morning, which was one of the most fantastic places I've been to in Portugal. The first thing I saw when I got off the train was miles of ancient Roman aqueduct. Sometimes it would break up for a while and then start up again. The aqueduct passed a really cool cemetery, and ended into a medieval monastery. There were other great sights around the town, and the walk along the Ave River was amazing. I came back to Porto in the late afternoon, and then decided to go to Aveiro, about an hour south of Porto, thinking "I can't believe I'm going to another destination today. " But Aveiro was another amazing place, loaded with multiple canals filled with tourist boats, and beautiful parks.  Aveiro is famous as a bird haven, and it is a good place for bird watchers. I wanted around there for several hours, and got back to Porto fairly late at night.


Then, the next day, I said goodbye to Porto and headed to Lisbon.  More adventures ahead, hopefully.


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