We arrived in Porto, a Unesco World Heritage Site, late in the afternoon. It reminded us of how often when we’re driving our campervan, we arrive at dusk. Soon after arriving, there were welcome drinks in our hands. This is a dangerous river cruise with an open bar and good wines- like superman is to Kryptonite; we are to good reds and whites! Branching out, we very quickly taught the crew that we were the Vino Verde people on board.
Here are some dusk photos from our birthing spot across from Porto- the old city. Technically, we were birthed in Vila Nora de Gaia. This area is full of port wine lodges (warehouses) where the wine is matured to be shipped all over the world. Gaia is where most of the people live because apartments are much cheaper. There are five or six bridges that connect the two cities and one of those, Ponte de Dona Maria Pia, was designed by Gustav Eiffel, the same engineer that designed the Eiffel Tower.
Some of our hoard chatted about the tightness of their rooms on our ship, the Queen Isabel. To our bodies, trained in traveling in our campervan, space was fine; dare we say spacious. The ship was not owned by Uniworld, our tour provider, but was instead leased. From our understanding, Uniworld owns some ships and others are leased. This may be true for other companies like AMI or Viking. BTW, the pool above was about 36″ deep – don’t jump or dive! Here is a snap of our spacious cabin. To save some bucks, our room was on the bottom floor and looking out our window was about 18″ above the waterline. We slept like a baby, not the type of baby that wakes you up in the middle of the night cryin’. Neat perspective out of our window or port hole:
Our first morning, we had the option of either doing a bus tour of Porto or a walking tour. We chose the later. Another good morning with cool temperatures and light clouds. Some photos from the pedestrian and Eiffel train bridge overlooking the city and of a street being repaired. The small boats you see are called Rabelo boats- the original vessels that used to carry port wine in barrels from vineyards in the Douro to Gaia for storage. Today they are used as tour boats.
There were many beautiful tiled churches and buildings:
There were statues, direction signs for starting the El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, gelato, and codfish croquettes everywhere. Also what some say is the most beautiful McDonald’s in the world. NOTE: We only went in to take a couple snaps for our dear readers.
One of the sights our guide pointed out was the coffee/book shop that JK Rawling used to hang out in while working on the first Harry Potter book. The bookstore started getting so much traffic, with lines waiting to get in, they had to start charging an entrance fee of five euros to get inside which can be used towards the purchase of a book. We observed the line, but just enjoyed it from the outside.
River Cruise Food Porn:
