This summer, by beautiful cousin Courtney married Joao in Porto, Portugal, where he is from. I'll never turn down any excuse to travel and get to be a part of their special day, so mom, Martha and I booked tickets to join some of the family in Porto! Matt, for some reason ;) , isn't as excited about European travel, so we decided this would just be a girls' trip and he would send his well wishes from back home in Houston.
Martha and mom drove up to Houston and we gathered our stuff for our trip!
on the plane, here we go!
Our first glimpse of Porto!
I, of course took TONS of pictures during our trip, so I am going to try to keep these posts to just some highlights and will post a link to the photobook, if I ever get one done :)
After arriving and finding our hotel, we set out to get a snack and this is what we found. Yes, i agree, it looks less than appetizing. The cafe we ended up in did not have any menus in English, nor did the employees speak any English, so this is what we had as our first meal: its sort of a version of Francesina which is a famous dish in Porto. This one was more of just a hotdog with cheese between bread and sauce on top. I wouldn't order it again, but was a fun way to kick off the trip, eating something totally NOT America and at least slightly Portuguese :)
We followed it up with some good 'ol chocolate ice cream :)
From there we set out to meet up with Larry and his group. This beautiful church was right around the corner from the flat they were staying at!
Exploring Porto with Mary Ellen, mom, Ronnie (Rhoda's parents), Martha, Rhoda and Larry. Photo op by the Majestic Cafe
beautiful streets
Took a bus tour of the city so we could get the lay out and see all of the main sites
Douro River that runs to the south of Porto. Across the river is Vila Nova de Gaia, which is actually another city, but kinda just like another neighborhood
The bus took us out to the point where you can see the ocean at Queijo Castle, which really wasn't much of a castle, more like it used to be a fort but there wasn't really anything there now. Later in the week we ended up at the beach in this picture!
Back in town for a meal. Coke had a campaign during this time where their cans said "share a coke with _____" and there were different names in the blank. They apparently had the same campaign in Europe and we ended up witha a "Matias" (Matthew) coke!
our lunch spot
We also took a cruise up and down the Douro
Looking over at Porto from Vila Nova de Gaia (where a few of the Port Wine cellars were located)
Liberdade Square
also in the square, our meeting point, the fanciest McDonald's I've ever seen!
The next (very rainy) day, we went to scope out the Livraria Lello, where J,K. Rowling was said to be inspired in her writing the Harry Potter series. You can't take any pics inside, but its pretty cool! It's a normal, functioning bookstore, but a sweet looking staircase right in the middle!
Took another leg of the bus tour, to also stay out of the rain!
Walking by the river on the Vila Nova de Gaia side of the river. They have replicas of the boats the wine makers used to use to transport the grapes from up the river in the fields, down to this area where they are processed and stored in cellars. There is a "flag" here for each of the companies
We took a tour of the Cockburn's Cellar (pronounced "co-burns")
Having fun at the end-of-the-tour Port wine tasting
Next, our side trip to Madrid!
No comments:
Post a Comment