The Best of Portugal Day 8
The Best of Portugal
Day 8 - September 10, 2002 - Oporto
A 7:30 wake up call and then a nice continental breakfast. Their bread is always excellent and with butter, strawberry jam and cheese it is a nice breakfast. Juice, some fruit, yogurt it is a nice way to start the day.
We were ready to leave on the sightseeing tour of Porto and Gaia, across the Douro river from Porto. Looks like the same city but Gaia is noted for their Port wine companies. We saw the baroque church of Sao Francisco and visited the Stock Exchange with its Arabian Hall.
The church has over 1000 pounds of Brasilian gold on its walls. It is very rich looking church once inside. It is slowly being restored to its former glory as was damaged in the Portuguese Civil War back in the 1820's!!!
We got on the bus and went to the Stock Exchange and the inlaid woodwork and great art was quite beautiful. Unfortunately, we were not able to take pictures inside but our tour guide for the city (Fatima) was very knowledgeable and pleasant.
We walked by the Douro River and saw some of the sights and we were taken to a shop where a woman was making gold filigree jewelry. Gennie fought of the urge but many did not.
From there we crossed the river over a beautiful old bridge and went to Gaia to see the Sandeman Port and Sherry Wine Company established in 1790. We took a tour, saw the process and were able to try several different types of their wines. Not to my liking as they were too sweet. We went back to the hotel and we had the rest of the afternoon to visit the city on our own.
Tonight we took the Cruz Porto river boat from Porto and motored up and down the Douro River seeing the sights in the coast line. It was interesting to see the 5 different bridges that spanned the river between Porto and Gaia.
The most famous is Eiffel Bridge which was designed by the same man that did the Eiffel Tower in 1886. We were able to get some sunset shots and as we sat in front, we got some good pictures.
We got on the bus and we tried out local specialties in one of the harbor restaurants, the Chez Lapin Restaurant. The waiters were specially nice to us and we got the royal treatment. I helped that Frank was tipping them and we all were very nice. We got extra wine, extra bread, port wine and Frank got an extra dinner.
We consumed 2.5 bottles of red wine, and one bottle of white for Frank. When dessert came they gave us the special desserts that others did
not get. Gennie in her quest of the corks was able to get a whole bag of them from everyone's dinner. I had shellfish rice, Gennie had the salmon. Both were excellent. Sue Turnbull had the rabbit that I was able to try. After dinner we got on the bus and got home about 10 PM.
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