Today we caught a taxi to the Sao Bento Station in Porto so that we could admire the magnificent scenes painted on the tiles in the entrance foyer before setting off on a day of walking around the city, staying in the streets at a higher level first and eventually winding our way down alleys and flights of stone steps to the Ribeira (river) area. This is a busy tourist area, with many cafes/bars, stalls of local linen, tiles and pottery and the launching place for the river cruises. We could have spent several days walking the many areas of Porto and you really need to do this to find the gems such as the magnificent interior of the book store Livraria Lello & Irmao and the two-storey knick-knack shop that used to be a fabric store (hence its very wide and long counters), both on Rue Carmelitas and the interesting decor of the cafe in Rua Galeria (off Rue Carmelitas) where we had excellent coffee and cake for €2.20 for the two of us.
However we felt the need to move on to Lisbon the next day or we would not reach the Med this summer!
Our final meal in the Porto area was in the little community of Afurada, near the marina at Taberna Pedro, where we selected which seafood we would like grilled on the charcoal braziers. This cooking was done by the owner (constantly smoking his cigarettes) out on the street and we sat at tables on the side of the road. (The weather is now warm enough for this.) The large number of local patrons vying for tables at Taberna Pedro is a measure of the excellence of our starter of grilled sardines and our shared main course of grilled kebabs of prawns and octopus, our grilled whole robelo fish and our salad of lettuce/sliced onions/ grilled peppers/olives. Regretfully we did not have the dessert creme brûlée but we were fascinated by the dessert chef's cooking style as he sat the dishes on a steel stool beside us and seared the top of the brûlée with an instrument like a branding iron that he heated in the brazier. It was all a great experience that we will remember for a long time and it is not written about in any tourist book!
We were pleased we had selected the Douro Marina for our stay in Porto. The office staff at the marina could all speak English and were extremely helpful at all times; we would highly recommend this new marina to anyone visiting Porto. The laundry area has not been finished yet, but an arrangement has been made with a laundry service to wash and iron with a same day service, which was very good and extremely cheap. An extra bonus was a bag of fresh rolls delivered to the boat each morning, allowing us to easily enjoy a European style breakfast with hams, salami, cheeses, hard-boiled egg and salmon to accompany the doughy rolls. Of course they were also perfect with butter and Vegemite!
A relatively new and very large Corte Ingles store with an excellent supermarket is a taxi ride away on the Gaia side of the river and I would have loved to have shopped in Porto at the Mercado do Bolhao (Rua Fernandez Tomas, Mon - Fri, 8-5 & Sat 8-1) as well as the special grocery shop opposite the market, A Perola do Bolhao.