adopting a new lifestyle

I landed in L.A. this past Friday, and let me tell you…it’s good to be home. It’s taken me a few days to get used to being back in Los Angeles, especially having been greeted by a 5-day monsoon with rolling blackouts on my block. In any case, over the next few days I’m going to post about Portugal, our final week in southern Spain, and my week in Israel.

After Thanksgiving, a small group of us headed to Portugal for the weekend. Michael had a friend visiting from back home, so we were 9 in total. This was a bit of a squeeze because all the rooms we booked were for 4 people..but luckily none of the hotel / hostel staff mentioned anything to us. We planned to stay 1 night in Porto and then 1 night in Lisbon so we could get back in time to pack for our week in the south.

We flew into Porto’s Aeroporto Francisco Sá Carneiro:

We checked into the Residencial São Jorge, dropped off our luggage, and set out to explore Porto.

The view from the girls’ room:

Porto sits on the Duoro River, with some parts built up onto the hill. We made our way down the stairs of the city towards the Dom Luís Bridge (Ponte Luís I), the oldest bridge in Porto.

The Funicular dos Guindais – a funicular tramway that scales the hill bridging the docks with the main part of the city:

In 1881, construction began on the competition bridge, designed by Téophile Seyrig, a partner at Eiffel at the time. It was opened to the public in 1886. On the upper level, there are pedestrian walkways on either side of Line D of Metro do Porto, while the lower level serves vehicular traffic as well as pedestrian walkways. The bridge spans the river, bridging the cities of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia.

The funicular from the bottom and the reflection of the bridge:

We walked along the old port docks in search of some Portuguese food…

Since we were 9, they didn’t have any room for us outside, so they took us upstairs:

After lunch, we slowly made our way back to the hostel so we could change and get ready for the show at Casa da Musica.

Catedral (Sé) da cidade do Porto (Cathedral in the city of Porto):

Casa da Musica was several stops away, but it involved a decent walk to the nearest metro station, so we opted for 3 taxis to take us there.

Casa da Musica is a new (2005) concert hall designed by Rem Koolhaas of OMA. We practically came to Porto to see the building, so we ended up buying tickets to the Gulbenkian Orchestra who were visiting from Lisbon. The classical concert featured violinist Christian Tetzlaff. We dressed up. We felt pretty cultured.

Thank you, Ian, for these interior shots:

The end of the show:

We found a restaurant nearby the concert hall which was perfect because we were in no mood to walk far in the freezing cold.

The following morning, we walked back to the Dom Luís Bridge, this time approaching it from the upper level. We were headed to the docks on the opposite side of the river to grab breakfast and get some quick wine tasting in before heading back to the top of the hill to catch the 4 hour bus ride to Lisbon. It was extremely foggy on the side of Vila Nova de Gaia which made these pictures turn out really nicely.

We stopped by a café on the river to eat breakfast/lunch/brunch..food was meh. They tried to sneak a piece of ham into my burger..They were also fascinated by us for some reason and took pictures and posted it on their Facebook page for the café..they called us the united nations group because of our various ethnic backgrounds. A famous dish is the chorizo..the perfect anti-Jew food. It’s essentially this fat sausage thats sliced up onto a skewer, served in a flaming pot for you to cook on your own..at least it warmed us up.

Michael and I also wanted to try out their fish croquettes:

We then headed to see 2 wineries, both of which were offering free wine tasting. Porto is famous for its Port wine, a recipe of several hundred years. On this side of the Duoro, there are over a dozen wineries each offering a unique blend. Within about 2 minutes of entering Dalva, the floor salesman was ringing up 7 bottles of Port wine. I joked with him that that was the easiest buck he’d ever made in his life.

Croft not only offered free wine tasting, but a tour of the winery as well. The family is one of the earliest shippers of Port wine, having been established in 1678.

Here are a few shots from Ian:

I ended up walking away from both wineries with a bottle from each. We made our way back to the hostel to gather our bags and catch the bus to Lisbon. This time, we crossed the Ponte Luís I on the lower level and rode the funicular up the hill.

The bus was only €18, which wasn’t bad at all. To make things even sweeter, they offered free wifi internet by satellite. We arrived pretty late, but found a restaurant by recommendation of 2 girls from our class who had travelled to Portugal the weekend after we returned from our Eurotrip.

We woke up early to ride the bus to the edge of the city to see the Jerónimos Monastery. Unknowingly, it was a somewhat waste of time because they are closed on Mondays.

So we walked down the street to the famous bakery, Casa Pastéis de Belém and tried the Pastel de Nata, a Lisbon egg tart. I was pretty hungry so I got a mushroom quiche as well:

Next, we headed to Monumento aos Descobrimentos, a monument dedicated to those who participated in the Age of Exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries:

Afterwards, we hiked up the mountain to see Castelo de São Jorge, a moorish castle overlooking the city of Lisbon and the Tagus River. The hill upon which the citadel lies has been occupied since the 6th century, dating suggests, and is located at the highest point in the center of the historic area.

After exploring the old castle, it was time to head to the airport. We walked back to the residencia to collect our bags and took public transportation to the airport, which was a mistake. The bus took forever and we feared that we’d miss our flight. Luckily, it all worked out in the end, and we made it safely back to our apartment in Barcelona with just 8 hours to unpack, re-pack for the week-long trip in the south as well as the whole apartment because we needed to put everything in storage for the week.

The trip to Portugal, although short, was very much worth it. Being so close, it would have been silly to pass the opportunity up. That and everything was way cheaper, including flights.