Our last day in Porto. Went out for breakfast at the renowned Confeitaria do Bolhão, conveniently situated out our back window. Well, at least we had to have some compensation. Our bedroom window backs on to the bakery kitchen, and the lights are on at 4am with the exhaust fans running at full bore as they start the daily baking. The wafting smell of Portuguese tarts drifts into our room, and there was really nothing for it but to go and sample the wares.
The weather closed in around lunchtime as we walked down to the river and along the old city walls to the plaza for lunch. The walls are almost 700 years old, and define the boundaries of the old city. They protected the city from the vikings, the romans, the french and the spanish, but couldn’t keep out those most pernicious of visitors – the tourists. There were twelve gates in the wall, and many of them opened directly onto the river for off-loading commerce (mainly Porto wine) at the jetties. The river is between 14 and 20 metres deep which meant that the city could accomodate any trading vessel in use at the time, and lasted till container ships took over.
Gustave Eiffel won the competition to build the bridge over the River Duoru, to add to his fame for designing the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. The bridge has a central span of 160 m, which was greater than the longest arch span which had ever been built at the time, and is still very impressive today.
Had pizza on the waterfront (yes, the Portuguese put pineapple on their pizzas and call them Hawaiian) as waiters tried to hold down the outdoor awnings with gas bottles from the effects of increasingly strong wind gusts.
I’d booked (and paid for) a 3 hour e-bike tour of the city this afternoon, thinking that it would be something different and a bit of fun. Well, it was certainly different. About an hour before the tour, it started to rain, so I got my heavy rain gear out to wear. It rained as I walked all the way to the starting point, and I thought they might cancel it, but no. Everybody else had dropped out, but the guide was being paid to take me, so he suited up in full wet weather gear, and we took off through the rain.
Quite fun once you accepted the fact that you were going to get back wet, though the cobblestones and especially the tram lines were treacherous in the wet. Over the Duoru and up the hill to the Mosteiro da Serra do Pilar – the 15th century monastery occupying the highest hilltop in the city. It was the only time I got over the river and saw the view of the city looking back towards where we were staying. Returned over the river, and along the city wall where we’d had lunch. But then the rain turned to a downpour, and with shoes filled with water, and a steady trickle running down my chest inside the poncho, we stopped for some shelter. When we couldn’t even see the hill that we were heading for, I figured there was no point climbing it for a non-existent view, and called a halt to the tour. So, we rode back to the starting point through the heavy rain, called it quits, and I trudged back to the apartment in the hope of drying enough clothes to move on tomorrow in comfort. Not a great experience, but the kind of one you re-tell with suitable embellishments later.
Oh, and today Mandy dropped another clanger, declaring that the Google Translate app was the greatest thing ever invented – even better than condoms.