Station 1: Porto

After a pleasantly short flight, we arrived in Porto and first looked for our car rental company to pick up our vehicle for the next two weeks. However, that was more difficult than initially thought. Our rental company (Drive on Holidays) didn't have a station at the airport, but only a guy walking around with a sign. Unfortunately, we didn't know that 🤷‍♂️. After about 25 minutes and conversations with all the car rental stations, we finally figured it out and were taken to the actual station by shuttle bus, where we could pick up our Nissan Qashqai 😊. Let the journey begin 😎....

We had booked our accommodation two days in advance through Airbnb (after having to cancel the first Airbnb accommodation due to false information). In our new accommodation, we were greeted in style with a glass of Port wine and some tips for a nice city trip 🍷. That's how every welcome should be 😊.

If you haven't considered Porto for a city trip, you should change that 😊. Despite its small size of about 550,000 inhabitants, Porto has a very beautiful and large old town that hugs the Douro River 🕍. Everywhere you can find beautiful historic alleys and houses with colorful tiles, but the highlight is clearly the extremely high bridge over the Douro River by Gustave Eiffel 🌉.

Porto also has a lot to offer in terms of cuisine. This includes, of course, Port wine in various types (Ruby, Tawny & White). For the purpose of closing any knowledge gaps, we had to try them all, of course 😬🍷🍷🍷. As recommended by our landlord Joao, the best way to do this is with a Port wine cellar tour, so we didn't hesitate and spent 2 hours exploring the realms of 'Cockburn's'. However, the cellars are not located in Porto, but on the other side of the bridge, in Vila Gaia de Nova. Apparently, they also hyped a fish cake filled with cheese 😂. For this purpose, they have built a palace where live organists play the golden fish cakes (Pastel-Bacalauh) in the exhibition carousels 😂🏰. You can tell that Porto has a lot to offer culinary-wise. Almost everywhere you can find a sandwich called 'Francesinha' covered with various slices of sausage and at the same time drowned in a spicy sauce 🥪, and of course there are also plenty of 'Bacalauh' variations, the Portuguese ways of preparing cod fish 🐟. A real drink with the possibility of repetition is also the Port-Tonic 🍸, followed by white Sangria.

After being asked to leave an outdoor restaurant at lunchtime because we wanted to eat 'only' 5 appetizers instead of a main course 🙈, we also got to know a culinary highlight. The small tapas place 'Jimao', where we stopped twice during our vacation for the first time. Two dishes definitely stand out here: 'black octopus pasta' and 'caramel fondue'. If you like tapas, you should definitely try to get a table here 🥰.

Our way of buying water on the first night seemed a bit bizarre. Due to the new Corona regulations and the associated curfew starting at midnight, we had asked the owner of a stall right next to our apartment at lunchtime how long he would be open. He said until about 5 o'clock, but he would close the doors at midnight. For safety reasons, we thought. In the evening, around half past twelve, we arrived at the stall, but it was dark and closed. So we continued walking until the Indian stall owner followed us unnoticed and suddenly, out of the darkness, discreetly asked us what we wanted. Then he asked us to wait 50 meters further on the other side of the street. 3 minutes later, we received our goods packaged in a bag. We observed the same procedure several times while waiting, and suddenly the gap closed. Apparently, all smaller groups of drinkers on the street were being served 😂. That's how it must have worked during prohibition time 👏🍸🍹🍷🙈....

By the way, Porto also has an Atlantic beach, which can be visited with a little train 🌞🌊. And if you want to return from there, you can simply take an Uber back for a few euros.... 🚗

To be able to absorb everything worth seeing in Porto, you should plan 3 days. Now we feel at home in Portugal and can continue our journey.