Thursday 10.28.2010


Another Day, Another Country


It is a foggy wakeup this morning, but warmer than it has been. We’re up before 8:00, but for some reason it’s 10:00 before we go to get the car and amazingly 11:00 by the time we hit the road. Maybe energy is slipping, but we gain an hour today when we cross into Portugal so we have plenty of time. We pick up an apple and croissant at the little grocery across from our hotel for breakfast in the car.


The drive today is a combination of low mountain peaks interspersed with peeks at the ocean to our right as we move south. We go through a dozen small towns that seem spic and span and relatively new compared to our travels until now. Real cities Pontevedra and Vigo on the Spain side also seem pretty upbeat and modern. There is construction everywhere and given the plight of the Spanish economy, we wonder if this is the result of EU stimulus money.

At 2:00 we cross into Portugal, set our clocks back to 1:00 and stop for lunch in Viana do Costelo. This reminds us of a Mexican seaside resort with a million condos and in late October hardly anyone in the streets. We park in the center of town and walk down to the beach where there are still a few sleepy cafes open. The one we pick, Billabong, is a combination sandwich shop and surf-wear shop with a definite Aussie image. There are a few tables outside and the sun has burned away the early morning fog so we sit and watch very heavy waves crashing in on a very nice big beach. Mary has the ever-popular grilled ham and cheese sandwich while John goes big with the burger topped with, yes, ham and cheese. We also have a couple giant coffees and the total bill is E9.70--we might like Portugal. There are a couple surfers paddling out, but otherwise this is definitely off-season.


The drive into Porto, our stop for tonight, is pretty smooth with Monique giving us the instructions we need to get the last few miles through busy city streets. A doorman at a neighboring hotel gets us the last few feet to our B&B where we meet hosts John and Carmen. They grab the luggage and get us moving to their negotiated-rate car park a block away. When we get back, the luggage is in our room and they bring us a nice glass of white port and a dish of peanuts. Very pleasant.

We have a room on the fourth floor (they have an elevator!) overlooking the Douro River and the Port Wine lodges on the other side. This is the splurge of our trip so we took the best room with the best view and we better enjoy it. We get a city map and hit the Ribeira, the walkway along the river, and then venture uphill into the "downtown" part of the city. The only level place in town is probably the river and we know that is flowing downhill to the ocean a mile away. We huff and puff our way past churches, statues, historic buildings and eventually onto Rua Santa Catarina, the main pedestrian shopping mall. We will attest that walking downhill is a lot easier than up, especially on these rough and tumble cobblestone streets. We're strolling for more than a couple hours so dinner will look good tonight.

Carmen has booked a table for us at a riverside restaurant D'Antonho, but they disagree when we arrive. They are apologetic, however, and get us right in. We are back to an old school menu with appetizers and main courses, so we both have a nice vegetable soup, and Mary has the salmon again and John has a sort of veal stew with potatoes and vegetables. Speaking of old school, our server plates everything tableside with great attention to presentation detail which is fine. The trouble arises when he gets three tables seated at the same time, one of them a table of eight and he is scrambling to open and pour wine, plate appetizers, then plate entrees for thirteen people all at once. We don't see him for a while.


There have been about a hundred kids (18-19 year olds) running and singing and marching up and down both sides of the river ever since we arrived this afternoon and they are outside the restaurant when we leave. Almost all have on black t-shirts, but there are a few in coats and ties with black capes. We get dribs and drabs of information, but our understanding is that this is a first year university ritual and the dressier ones are the upper classmen leaders. This has been going on for hours by now and it seems they are wearing down. So are we.

It is a pleasant walk back along the river and when we get back Carmen plops us down and we all chat about the lodging business. She is a Canadian from Montreal and John is from South Africa. They worked so hard to get this place up and running that now that it is successful they would like to sell it and move along. She wants to get a camper trailer and travel the U.S.--Yikes! Their big break came when they were featured on the "Today Show" as a great European bargain destination. And to think it is our splurge.


We have English speaking TV for the first time in a couple weeks so we are fascinated. We don't even mind catching up on the election crap. Mary watches an old movie while John crashes.

Today's weather: Foggy early with sun later and warm. Low 50, high 68.