Porto and its Wine

February 28, 2013:

I was up in time for the morning tour. Unfortunately, I had already done a good part of the sights we covered that morning. Fortunately, our tour guide, one of the hostel staff, had a lot of information to add that was really interesting, such as the story of the Cock of Barcelos, the famous rooster who became a symbol of Portugal.

There are two legends, one outlined on the Wikipedia page, where a dead rooster crows to prove a man's innocence, and another where a rooster informs a man of an impending attack by the Spanish meaning that the Portuguese are given time to prepare before the battle and are able to defend themselves. We learned also that the Portuguese were the first of the Western nations to discover tea and because of their close friendship with the British, they had to give up their trading posts in India, etc so that the British could colonize them. Nice friends.

We explored the older part of the city that I had not seen the day before.

This area was more traditional than the area where the hostel is located.

She also explained the story of the azulejos tiles specifically using the São Bento train station as an example. There are approximately 20 000 tiles in the train station, painted between 1905-1916 by the most important azulejo artist of the time, Jorge Colaço.

 

These tiles depict the Battle of Veldevez in 1140.



If I remember correctly, this last image, depicts a man who had promised the Spanish king the kingdom of Portugal who has returned to refuse to keep his promise and to offer his family in place of Portugal. He and his family were spared, as was Portugal.

On the tour, I met Anna from Australia and we agreed to have lunch together in the shopping district at a place called Café Santiago, where the traditional dish is francesinha (translates as "Frenchie"). We called it a heart-attack on a plate. I hadn't woken up in time to grab breakfast so I was starving, but this was more than I bargained for.

It was invented in the 1960s by Daniel Da Silva, a returned immigrant from Belgium and France who attempted to adapt the croque-monsieur to Portuguese taste. Apparently that meant adding all the meat (wet-cured ham, linguiça, fresh sausage like chipolata, steak or roast meat) to a sandwich, dousing it in cheese and pouring a beer and tomato sauce over everything. It is traditional of Porto and has become a bit of a cult.

We followed this up with scrumptious hot chocolate from the Café Majestic, a building done in the art deco style.

We spent the afternoon trying to work off all this food by climbing and descending all of the hills in the older part of the city. We climbed up to the Sé do Porto (Porto Cathedral), one of the oldest monuments in Porto. It was too beautiful out, so we opted not to go inside, and continued down the other side of the hill to the Douro River. The bridge over the Douro was designed by a protégé of Eiffel, and looks similar to the Eiffel Tower.

We crossed the river and made our way to Graham's Port Wine centre. We got a bit lost on the way, but we weren't too concerned. The extra walking felt good after all that food.

 

When we got there, we waited a half hour for our tour, looking through all the old documents they had on display, including letters from the family during World War II. The family that owned the business were British and Scottish and it is still a family-owned business, one of the only ones left. We were pleasantly surprised to have Harry Styles as a tour guide. Ok, so it wasn't really Harry Styles, but he was a spitting image. And he was older than the real Harry Styles, in Portugal for the second half of his study abroad year (having spent the first half in Spain). Delicious. I'm talking about the wine...

We learned all about how the wines are made, saw some wines being stored since the late 1800's or something and did a wine tasting. Apparently, the grapes are grown in the Douro valley, much further down the river, and then transported down the river to Porto where they prepare them, add the liquor and then store them. The ruby vintage port and the tawny port were delicious. The older stuff that we tried was our favourite and we decided to stick around and order a proper glass of our favourites. If only to spend a bit more time with Harry Styles.

Back at the hostel, we tried some green wine at the hostel bar before dinner. It was really refreshing for a wine. We had duck rice for dinner. It was the first time I had ever had duck, and it is a bit greasy as a meat, but the dish was delicious. I was overwhelmed by the sense of hospitality that the people I met embody. Almost to the point that they were offended if I offered to help in any way. It was slightly bizarre. I hate feeling useless, but I think it's a matter of pride in the way they welcome you. If you offer to help, it might mean that you don't think they are doing their job properly or something.
I was wiped after all the wine and food we'd consumed and all the walking we'd done and I turned in for the night.

March 1, 2013:

I grabbed breakfast at the hostel and went out souvenir shopping. I was so enamoured by Porto at this point that I went a bit wild and bought two magnets for the city. Generally if I was going to buy two magnets, I would buy one for the city and one for the country, but I am honestly so in love with this city. It needed more representation of my future fridge. I was so sad when I boarded the train for Lisbon. It really didn't stand a chance.