Friday 10.29.2010


Pouring Port as it Pours in Porto, Portugal

It is raining cats and dogs and numerous farm animals this morning and the wind is whipping the rain against the windows of our room. The river, which flows from left to right as we watch it, seems to be going the other way with the wind pushing waves upstream.

We have a leisurely 9:30 booking for breakfast and our host John is dressed in his restaurant finery to be our server this morning. He does the morning shift while Carmen handles the late stuff. He says he is serving us sardines and warm milk, but we think that is just that crazy South African humor. Actually it is a plate full of tropical fruits, yogurt, meats, cheeses, fresh squeezed juice, coffee and a big breadbasket. People are coming and going at the other two tables in the breakfast room so we don’t chat with our fellow guests.

We had planned on this Sunday as a day to catch up on laundry and lie around, but with the rain this morning we may get a new plan. After we read for a while, we think we should do the laundry today, so Carmen writes us a note to the laundry person down the street which we present along with two bags of dirty togs. She says 4-hours (we think) so we have time to kill.


We had talked about doing the hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city and we think that is still doable in the rain as long as we don’t hop off. There is a blue line and a red line and we can use our tickets on either. We think we catch the red, but really it is the blue and after a spin around the downtown sights we go across the bridge to the port wine lodges. We planned to see a couple lodges anyway so we jump off here (just a drizzle now) for some tasting and touring. The first place, Croft, will not have an English tour until 3:00, but they are happy to pour us a taste. Okay.


We walk farther up the hill to Taylor. They have an English tour starting in five minutes (2:30) and we have a couple more tastes while the tour is delayed by yet another downpour. Port wines are made from a variety of grapes from the Douro Valley, about two miles up river. In this particular style they begin the fermentation process like other wines, but when it reaches a specific point they add brandy to stop the fermentation that leaves the wine slightly sweet and higher in alcohol. After going through those steps following the fall harvest, the wines are then brought here in the spring where they are stored in huge caves (lodges) on the north facing slope of the river bluff and are aged for one to dozens of years. The quality of the vintage determines how and how long a wine will be aged. There is one barrel that holds 100,000 liters of vintage port that will turn into 133,000 $50 bottles. You do the math. Interesting and tasty.

We find the blue bus again and finish that route and then transfer to the red bus that takes us farther out into the city. Our lodging view is of the old city along the river, but we now can see newer development and really very nice upscale neighborhoods. We turn back at the Atlantic Ocean where the storms are bringing massive waves on shore although the sun is now peeking through from time to time. We follow along the shore until it becomes river and back to our part of town.


It’s almost 6:00 when we pick up our laundry, so what started as our replacement rest-up day filled up nicely. Carmen books an 8:00 table at their favorite neighborhood restaurant, a tiny place across the square called A’Grade’. Our B&B host John is at a table in the corner having dinner and will soon be replaced by Carmen as they switch shifts. Noah, another guest at the B&B from Toronto, soon joins us and we share stories from separate tables as we have dinner. After small appetizer plates of octopus, sardines, and other delicacies, Mary has a uniquely Portuguese cod dish and John has the sole. Both of these arrive in earthenware pots and we have at least enough for two in each. At the end of the meal the owner pours us small glasses of homemade jet fuel he thinks will help us digest our dinners and then he pours us another. We are now becoming fluent in Portuguese and several other languages.

We wobble up and down the river to air out a bit before bed and find a couple new side streets with bustling restaurants and bars. We manage to avoid those and make it back to bed.

Note:  Since we always talk about the weather in our blog we are no longer going to do the statistics here, but rather a caption for the picture of the day.

Todays Picture:  Our riverside neighborhood in Porto.  We are inside those top two white windows closest to the river in the black building in the center of the picture