Harbor

Hello everyone,

I'm currently sitting in the kitchen of my surf camp in Lourinha in Portugal and enjoying the somewhat quiet phase after being in the water for 3 hours today and further developing my surfing skills. I can already stand on the board and have already made it to the end of two good waves today. I am a fan of the sport.

But I'll definitely tell you more about that later. First I have to tell you about the adventures I experienced with Sophia. And the first adventure began in Porto.

I flew inland to Porto and picked Sophia up from the airport here early in the evening. Thanks to some recommendations from several friends, we arrived on time for our first sunset and watched it with the most famous bridge in Porto in the background.

After that we just went straight to the accommodation and then had a delicious meal at Honest Greens in the city center. Our first accommodation was really nice and from there you could reach all of Porto on foot.

The next morning we went out relatively early because we had booked a free walking tour.

We have already seen a lot on the way there.

We met our tour guide at this place and we were completely enchanted by his company. His name is Tango and he was adorable.

In general, the art of azulejos is very popular in Portugal. The name has nothing to do with the color blue, which is usually used for it, but rather with the processing process, which takes 24 hours. The advantage of these works is that they last forever, barring deliberate destruction, as they are neither washed out by water nor bleached by the sun.

Porto is a wonderful city where cars are not allowed even in the city center. There are also a lot of green spots here and I found the city to be generally very clean.

The train station in particular is particularly known for the great representation of Portugal's history through azulejos:

In this photo you can definitely see the difference in the color strength in one image and the weakness in the other image. This is because for the purpose of restoration, certain nets are hung in front of these works to protect the works.

In total there are 3 tiles in the Porto train station that were placed incorrectly on the artists' intention. This was done to make it clear to the clients that they were dissatisfied with the pay and treatment and to force them to increase wages. I didn't find any of these errors but our tour guide was able to point them all out to us. And what can I say: once I saw it, my inner Monk couldn't ignore it anymore.

Then we continued with the goal of Porto Cathedral in mind.

With this in mind, I would also like to point out that so far none of the horses on which any celebrities sit are female animals, but mostly male animals with quite supra-regional mounts. So if someone ever makes a statue of me, I would like a mare! SO!

Our tour ended here and we then made our way to a jewelry shop that a super friend recommended to us. Unfortunately, our wallet didn't really like this advice. It's a family business and everything is handmade in Porto by an old gentleman and his son. A few rings richer, we continued strolling through the city.

Since spending money usually makes you very hungry and thirsty, we treated ourselves to a Portuguese specialty and treated ourselves to a port wine and a fish ball filled with mountain cheese.

The port wine was particularly beneficial for our next plan. We then went to the exhibition of the funniest animal photos from 2022. And we not only entertained ourselves, but also the entire museum or exhibition.

I've put my absolute favorites here for you and you can find a few more in the general pictures. The building in which the exhibition was held is an old prison and therefore also offers a few historical exhibitions.

After the exhibition I booked us a Fado show and we really enjoyed it after a whole day in Porto.

After the performance, we looked at the cathedral at night and also walked across the famous bridge, which was designed by Mr. Eiffel himself.

Porto is really a beautiful city and I can only recommend it! The next day we went to the bouldering hall and worked out a bit there. After this visit to the bouldering hall, we drove to Lisbon.

With this in mind, I will tell you more about Lisbon and its surroundings in the next post.

Until then,
Your Britta