Porto, Portugal

On the weekend of April 19-21, I was in Portugal. Almost immediately, I fell in love with the city. I won’t lie to you, many of the buildings are corroding and crumbling, but the city is absolutely beautiful.

First, I stopped by my hostel to drop off my things. The woman working the desk was incredibly friendly and helpful. One of the bonuses (I guess) to not fully planning out my trips is that I get a wonderful opportunity off the bat to talk to my hosts and learn what they love about the city. This woman was so excited that she laid out more things than I could fit into only a weekend!

I walked through the central area of the city down to the river, just meandering my way around, stopping to take pictures of anything I found interesting. I walked by old buildings, beautiful churches, remains of castles, and finally made it to the Douro River. This river made Porto a huge port city, running from Spain all the way to Porto on the Atlantic Coast. I crossed over the Ponte Luís I (Louis I Bridge), and took some pictures of the city with the river in the foreground. It’s amazing because Porto is such a hilly city that you can see many buildings as the city rises up from the river.

Portugal is believed to have gotten its name from the combination of Porto and the area north to the Minho River (another large river emptying into the Atlantic Ocean), known as Cale (pronounced: "call-a"). The name Portocale eventually transformed to Portogale and finally evolved into Portugal as we know it today. It's interesting to know that I was in one of the cities that played a major role in the namesake of the entire country.

From the bridge, I walked along the river, seeing many of the wineries that Porto is known for. If you have ever heard of Port Wine, this is where it comes from. I walked along the river until I got to the Atlantic Ocean, and then I walked along the beach. I took my shoes off to walk in the sand and test the water (which was incredibly cold by the way). Unfortunately, the sand in Porto was very rough. It was not the thin grain, soft sand I was used to. Rather, it was coarse and rough on my feet. I walked along the beach, saw two lighthouses that directed boats into the port from the ocean, and really just relaxed. It was very peaceful.

Later that night, I tried to make my way back to the beach to take pictures at sunset, and only just barely made it. I was able to catch the last few glimpses of sunlight. Fortunately, I was able to salvage the situation by taking pictures of the stars over the ocean as it got darker. I think they turned out pretty well!

Saturday, I took a tour, which will be elaborated on in my next post, but I also met a lot of really cool people. One guy was wearing a Steelers hat (he was from Italy, but he likes American Football)! I met a girl who was living in Amsterdam but was originally from New Zealand and was visiting with her mother. I met two girls studying in Maastricht, Netherlands: one was from South Africa and the other from Russia. There was a guy from Australia and another from Chile, plus a young couple from Mexico City. Basically what I’m getting at is that our group consisted of people from 6 of 7 continents.

A group of three German women was also on the tour, and their English was very rough. Once I told them that I spoke a little bit of German, I became their unofficial translator. I only had to help with a few of the details, but overall, they got most of what was going on. It was fun and frustrating because most of the words that they didn’t know were difficult to come up with in German, but we got all of them sooner or later! These women were about to partake in a pilgrimage known as “El Camino de Santiago” or Way of St. James. They would walk from Porto to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, spanning nearly 225 km or 140 miles. Not an easy trek for women in their 50s.

Later that night, I was finally able to get my sunset pictures. Some of them turned out really great, and I was able to get a picture similar to one of our rush shirts for SigEp!

On Sunday, I took a bus out to Geres (pronounced [roughly]: “jza-resh”). Best of luck with that one. Geres is a national park in the northeast of Portugal near the Spanish border. Once my bus dropped me off, I was in a small town just outside the park and had no idea where I was supposed to go. Of course, once you get out into small towns like these, you are lucky to find anyone who speaks anything other than Portuguese. Luckily, one of the younger girls at a diner struggled through her rough English vocabulary to help me figure out where to go.

I have to stop and say that not very many people I met in Portugal spoke English. However, even if they didn’t understand a word I was saying and I didn’d understand a word they were saying, they were incredibly patient and tried to be as helpful as possible. I appreciate the effort they made to help me out. It was really cool to meet people who were friendly and tried everything they could think of to help.

At the national park, I came across some beautiful landscapes, a bunch of lizards, some wild horses, and a really awesome waterfall, among other things. Words literally can't describe, so I'll just let you look at the pictures! This was a really refreshing change from the city experiences I am accustomed to having in Europe.

When I was heading back, the bus was late. After about 10 minutes I started to get a little bit concerned. I was two hours from Porto in the middle of nowhere. When the bus was 20 minutes late, I decided to go ask someone. If I was stuck here, I would miss my flight in the morning and have to pay a lot to get back to Germany. I talked to someone in the diner and they told me not to worry and that buses are typically late in Portugal. This bus was now half an hour late, and I was trying my best not to completely lose it. After 45 minutes, the bus showed up and everything in my world settled back to a normal level of calm. I guess the lesson we can take from this is that the Portuguese do things on a very delayed schedule.

Anyway, my time in Portugal was an incredible one, and I think that it is the coolest place I have visited while I’m here in Europe.