M&M Space Apartments MM3 Booking.com
We landed on time and had the easiest immigration experience ever. It looked like we were the only plane being processed, so we were through to baggage claim in no time. I admit I nervously waited for our luggage, but it soon came through and hallelujah – RAM did a good job. My transfer booking through booking.com arrived and said he was waiting at arrivals. I missed finding him, but eventually Colin found him, and we headed out to his car which was modern, clean and very comfortable. For the first time trying this taxi booking service, it all went smoothly, and it was comforting being in ‘normal’ traffic, where road rules apply.
We arrived at our apartment just after 7.00pm. Our Airbnb host, Maria and her husband, were waiting and thoroughly showed us the features of the apartment. It is small, but beautifully set up, with modern appliances and double glazing. The bed is glorious, and part of our welcome pack includes a bottle of wine. After five weeks without easy access to alcohol, this is a great start.
Even though we had a snack on the plane, we decided to head out and find somewhere to eat and celebrate our arrival. After trying a couple of restaurants that were fully booked, we stumbled onto ‘Freitas’ and with the warm welcome, decided why not? They offered a cheese and ham platter which looked really appealing, so we settled in to enjoy our first meal in Portugal, with a bottle of the local red. Our tolerance to alcohol has dropped a lot, so it was a good thing the apartment wasn’t far away.
Our first day was a settling in day – discover the local area, do some grocery shopping and get lost. Our nearest supermarket is a three-minute walk (Continente) so we bought four bags of goodies, including a two euro bottle of wine. Let’s see how that goes. Just a few doors down from us we have our local butcher. They are advertising meat packs, so we opted for the 15 euro pack, without a clue as to what is included. Portuguese is quite different to Spanish, so I didn’t know what we were going to be getting. The butcher didn’t speak a lot of English, but she was super helpful and worked with me to put our pack together. It all started well when she picked out three chicken marylands. Then she went to get chicken giblets – I haven’t had them since mum used to make chicken soup and when the butcher saw the look on my face she pointed to some hamburger patties, offering to swap the giblets out. Then she bagged up a kilo of mince, cut up a kilo of pork steaks and picked out two skewers of pork and veges. Looking good. The next move was towards huge chunks of liver – ugh! Again we laughed, and she asked if we would like two more chicken marylands. Perfect! And so cheap – 15 euros for about five kilos of meat (with the sneaky extra for the mince).
Loaded up and with a well-stocked kitchen, we decided it was time to do the tourist thing and followed the evil blue dot into the heart of the historical centre where we found the Cathedral, as well as the riverfront area of Porto. The line-up for the cathedral was long – we decided to skip it. I’m sure we will see other cathedrals. They tend to blur into each other anyway. This part of Porto is full of tourists, along with the trappings that come with that – lots of restaurants and souvenir shops. My overall impression is of grey – but it’s a cloudy day and we’ve had a couple of light showers.
Our wanderings led us down some steps (lots of steps and hilly walks here!) where we found a little hole in the wall restaurant selling the codfish cakes that Portugal is renowned for. After our snack, we wandered the streets for a bit and then thought we would try the metro to get us back to our apartment. We found the nearest metro, walked down the steps and bought our ticket. As part of the deal, you get a rechargeable card, so with a ride loaded, we were set to go…until a security officer told us the train line was broken down. Thankfully we hadn’t activated our card, so, keeping that for another day, we tackled the steps and hills for a well-earned beverage in our gorgeous apartment.
Over the next four weeks, we settled into living life in Porto, doing the day-to-day life things like grocery shopping, cooking and getting a feel for our local community. We are quickly learning that alcohol is much easier to find than in Morocco and beer and wine is very (too) affordable. A really nice wine is only 2 – 3 euros from the supermarket. Buying groceries and cooking our own meals is not only saving money, but we are getting to eat dinners that are familiar, and make things feel a bit homier.
Across the river from the main city of Porto is Vila Nova de Gaia. The metro can get you there, but we decided to walk and get some sightseeing done at the same time. With six major bridges spanning the Douro River, we walked across one with the rest of the crowd. There are plenty of port cellars offering tours and port tasting. Porto is famous for port, and I opted to try a port with my lunch. I’ve never had a white port (Porto Branco) and will add it to my repertoire of alcoholic beverages. We had lunch in a food court we found along the river front – my empanadas were yummy; Colin’s hamburger looked huge and worked with his beer. Our lunches cost us about 12 euros each, so while it is touristy, it’s still a bit more expensive than our budget will allow long term. We tried another port – a red one – to finish lunch off and ready ourselves for more wandering. It’s still warmer than we would like, but still better than the heat in Morocco.
Portugal is also known for its sardines, and there are sardines sold in dedicated shops as well as supermarkets and corner stores. The tins are artistic and you can even get tins for your date of birth – for a price of course. You can do a tour of one of the sardine specialty stores in Vila Nova de Gaia – but the shop area was awesome enough. I wanted to do a port tour, so we made our way to a nearby port cellar that was open (siesta is a real thing) which meant a trek up more cobblestoned streets. The tours are rather expensive, so we opted to sample the port sitting in the courtyard instead.
Colin was keen to explore Livraria Lello, where rumour has it that J.K. Rowling’s inspiration to write Harry Potter began in Porto, particularly at this library. The well-known writer lived in Porto for 10 years working as an English teacher in the early 1990s and she used to drink a cup of coffee at the second floor of Lello’s bookstore. There are indeed great similarities between Lello’s bookstore staircase and the one described in Hogwarts. We wandered the streets exploring and made our way to the area of the library – in order to get in, you need to buy a ticket online for a set time, then line up with the other 200 or so people booked for your time to enter and look around. It would have been a lovely experience, but we opted out. We checked out a church instead (yes, more lines) and happy with our tourist experience, headed home to live like the locals.
We have a bakery just across the road from us. The line up to buy his products in the mornings is always impressive, so we figured there must be a reason. We bought a couple of pastries and I wanted to try a round ‘cheese’ thing that looked tasty. We were horrified at the cost – 18 euros – but you live and learn. Mind you, the pastries were delicious, and the ‘cheese’ thing turned out to be a cheesecake. Best cheesecake ever! We didn’t go back to the bakery, but we enjoyed listening to his singing and swearing in the mornings! M..F..ker seems to be his favourite word.
There are certainly things to see around Porto, and we decided to explore what looked to be a huge park in the Senhor Matosinhos area. We packed up a picnic of sandwiches, doritos and vino (my hot and cold flask is finally getting used) and set off to use the public bus system to get there. The bus took almost an hour, but it was well worth the trip – there is an aquarium there, but it gets mixed reviews and is a bit expensive, so we decided to save our money. We made our way to the park from where the bus dropped us off, after enjoying seeing the modern areas of Porto. It looks like a nice city outside of the historical centre.
The park is lovely and we managed to find our way to a small lake area with a flock of geese and other water fowl where we sat and ate our picnic. As we had food, we were popular with the bird life, and we fed them some scraps as we were entertained by their antics. A guy wandering around gave us a couple of bread buns which Colin fed to the geese, although they particularly liked the left over nectarine we gave them. It’s a gorgeous park and we wandered around it util we made our way towards the beach area and the small fort, which sadly wasn’t open. With our step count high, we made our way back to the roundabout to catch a bus home. We caught the ‘wrong’ one, which just meant a long ride through the ‘burbs and a chance to see more of Porto.
We decided to explore further afield and do a couple of day trips. The first one was to Aveiro, also called the little Venice of Portugal. Touted as a must-see town, we took the metro to the train station at Campanha to get the train to Aveiro. The return trip was only 7 euros each – public transport is cheap and super easy. After an hour we arrived in Aveiro and followed the evil blue dot to the centre of town. It is rather touristy and there are about three canals that you can explore in ‘gondolas’, but unless you are never going to Venice, the cost is just not worth it. The town itself is quite pretty, but it’s a bit of a stretch to compare it to Venice. We had an awesome lunch at a restaurant just off the canals – wine and beer included in the 12 euro price, and good food as well.
The town is pretty – lots of colourful, tiled buildings. There was also a lot of construction happening which always takes away from the look of a place, but once they’ve finished whatever they are building, it will be really pretty. The canal system is very small and we didn’t bother wasting our money on the touristy gondolas, so we set off to explore. We ended up walking past the salt pans (didn’t know this is a major salt producer) which are ugly but interesting. Flamingos frequent the pans – they are not pink, so the shrimp that the south American and African flamingos eat to make them pink must not live in these pans.
As we made our way back into the main town, we stumbled upon a bus stop that services buses to Costa Novo and as the bus was already there, we jumped on board. I had read about Costa Nova and as the bus was there, figured serendipity was telling us to go. It took a little longer than we thought, but once we arrived we were happy to discover a lovely, stripy beach-side town. They take tiling the outside of their houses to the next level – it makes the whole place look like bag of candy. As is our way, we wandered around and eventually made our way to the ocean side of the town – gorgeous beach. It was an unplanned excursion, but definitely worth a peak, and a well-earned beer and ice-cream (not together – beer for Colin, ice-cream for Cheryl).
The other excursion we did was to Guimaraes, north of Porto. Once again we took the train – we are feeling like seasoned locals as we are navigating the public transport easily. An hour later we arrive and it is quite a walk from the station to the historic centre. The streets are very quiet to walk, although the traffic is rather backed up and the businesses we walk past are closed. Weird, but we follow the evil blue dot, hoping to find signs of life. The town is quite pretty and as we get closer to the historic area we begin to join the other tourists. The boulevard we wander along is quite pretty and it’s not long before we come across the gardens leading up to a church that are a typical picture for Guimaraes. By the time we get to the church it is about to close, so we continue towards the centre and hope we can find somewhere for lunch.
The historic centre is quite swiss alpine in its feel and we have no trouble finding a spot for lunch. Best chicken salad ever! And Colin has his hamburger. From there we made our way up to the castle and palace, following very pretty cobblestone streets. It’s hot, so the trees provide very welcome shade. The castle is rather ruined and lots of renovations are happening. There was no charge to get in and we lucked in as they may be closing the castle to visitors soon. Then we went to the Ducal Palace – fantastic museum and beautiful and interesting. Made the day worth it.
There are other towns to visit around Porto but we settled in to discovering our local area. We found a little café that offers a set menu lunch – soup, plate, bread and drink for 8 euros each. The staff speak little English and there are a few choices for the plate, so with a bit of guess work we settled on a pork meal. We were rather shocked when our drinks came out – a bottle of wine EACH! Whoa! When we said we’d just have one bottle the price dropped to 7 euros each. Absolute bargain. The vegetable soup was delicious and then our pork snitzel with chips, rice and salad was huge. Apparently coffee was also part of the deal, but we were stuffed full, although it might have helped sober us up a bit. The service was lovely and as such a bargain, yes, we did go back a few days later.
Wandering the streets is just fun, and this part of Porto feels authentic. Cafes are not just for coffee and cake, so when we need to stop, it’s usually wine and beer, although if you want something stronger, it can be a bit hit and miss for choice. We popped in at a café near one of the universities and tried to order bourbon. When our waiter didn’t understand, Colin went inside to see what they had on offer. Jameson’s won the day, although the bottle was nearly empty. Our waiter ran out to a car and grabbed another bottle from the boot. For three euros each, our serve was generous and made for a happy walk home.
Heading away from the historic centre and the tourists, we came across another church – there are a few to be found – which had a magnificent cemetery attached. We wondered around very well-maintained graves and mausoleums, although the graves are not very old. Space is a premium, so I guess there is a timeframe.
We headed back to the park for another picnic in our last week in Porto. The little fort was open this time, so for 50 cents, we enjoyed the little military museum and a beer. The fort has been handed over to a commando unit and they’ve done a lovely job on the renovation.
Porto was a relaxing, chill stay and as our first ‘living’ experience in our new lives, we thoroughly enjoyed the city, the apartment and our time. The people are friendly and we had great service everywhere we went. For our last night, we went back to Freitas for a steak dinner. We’d certainly come back.