But enough of that, you'll probably want to be seeing some keen stuff, right? Well there's a fair bit to show so I'll have to do it in chapters, for it's more story than pictures (though there is a fair bit of that as well.)
Chapter 1-
The Road to Porto or GET ME OFF THIS DAMN BUS!!!!
Actually the bus wasn't bad at all, compared to the Barcelona-Lisbon expedition it was quite dreamy and relaxed partly due to my night-before-induced comatose state. Leaving Lisbon was hard, I met a ton of good people there that I still keep in touch with and I was quite sad to see them go. The road to Porto was pretty interesting though, quite a bit of vineyards and some nice scenery as we were fairly close to the ocean most of the way. Having booked my ticket in advance I got the best seat at the very front of the bus with no one beside me! And Portuguese buses are really nice too, brand new leather, free WiFi, and climate controlled.
It was a pretty short trip, one quick stop in Fatima where I ran out of the bus and bought a rosary just to say I did, then next stop Porto! However, you'd think with such a small distance between these two cities the climates would be the same: not true. Lisbon was a scorching 43 degrees where as Porto was a mild foggy 25 or so. It wasn't just the temperature that was colder either, Porto is a depressing place. I hate to say it, but it was not my favorite. Not to say it didn't have good things about it, but the people there walked around like everyone's firstborn had died! I think the poor economic state of Portugal was most prominent here, but it seemed like the corruption was just accepted unlike Lisbon's subtle political tension. But I'll show you a picture to get the idea.
Just a shabby lookin place in general, and without the colourful banners and such. Lots of big, black stone official looking buildings too. But now that I've torn this city to shreds, I have to say it has some of the coolest views I've seen yet! These next photos were taken at the far end of a cathedral parking lot.
And this is the aforementioned cathedral!
And I did meet one really cool person here as well, an Awesome Aussie named Simon. Soon after I arrived we hit it off pretty well and decided to go find some dinner. We opted to try the local cuisine, the famous Francesinha. This thing puts the Denny's Slamburger to shame! Wikipedia describes it perfectly:
Francesinha is a Portuguese sandwich originally from Porto, made with bread, wet-cured ham, linguiça, fresh sausage like chipolata, steak or roast meat and covered with melted cheese and a hot thick tomato and beer sauce served with french fries.
I rest my case. It was good, but once-in-your-lifetime good. Over the next couple days I did venture out of my hostel/cave a couple times and did manage to find some really interesting sights.
Now you can really see the rawness of this country. I shouldn't really give it that hard a time in retrospect, for in a way it was good to see an honest city.
But that was pretty much it for Porto, on the last day Simon and I decided to check out the beach. We got horribly lost cuz Porto is the only city I visited where multiple train lines use the same tracks. I think we ended up taking two wrong trams and finding the beach about two hours later than we had hoped. This worked out okay though, when we found it there wasn't much to see at all, and the massive shipping harbour right next to the beach was a little unattractive. We decided to head home and cook dinner, and bought a bottle of....guess!
Port. The next day (or same day depending on how you look at it) at about 5am I hopped on the bus to the airport way too early for my first adventure with Ryanair. And indeed, the first flight I've taken since I landed in Gatwick over months ago!
To be continued....
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