Porto by Bus

Thursday 11^th September

We thought that we would aim for the bus that came sometime around ten fifty the next morning, so we were up fairly early and I cooked a breakfast of bacon and eggs etc. to keep us going. We headed for the bus stop along with a group of French people, who had the same idea. K had already sussed where the bus stop was, so we gave them a pointer on that score, and we all waited. A few more people arrived before the bus came at just gone eleven. It was one euro eighty five cents per person for one bus trip. We paid up and sat down for our forty minute ride into town. A quite convoluted route, which involved a lot of stop starts, and some amazingly narrow passages through parts of the town – quite literally no more than a few inches either side of the bus at some points. We were holding our breaths for a crunch, but the bus driver sailed through, hardly slowing down for most obstacles. We stopped at one point so that our driver could make his feelings felt to a motorist who had parked on the pavement, but had failed to pull his car over enough – he was taken down a peg or two, much to the amusement of the others in the bar from which he had emerged.

We alighted just in front of the Sandeman Cave once again and, having decided that we would do a ‘Red Bus’ tour, we found the relevant stop and waited. There are many tours that one can take in Porto. There are Red, Blue and Yellow Bus tours. Tours involving tourist ‘Trains’. Tours of the river in a variety of boats. Then, of course, all the tours of the caves of the various winemakers – and tastings!

The bus came and we bought our tickets. Although the bus was red, it was masquerading as a ‘blue line’ bus – following a different route. Then we found that the ticket covered both red and blue ‘lines’, included a wine tasting, and was valid for forty eight hours.

We didn’t avail ourselves of the ‘hop on hop off’ attribute of this tour, except once, when we changed from the blue ‘line’ to the red ‘line’ bus.

It took a couple of hours, and our audio guide highlighted the mains parts and principal buildings of Porto for us.

We alighted, once again, close to the Sandeman Cave, and decided to stop for a drink and a bite to eat. We chose something named ‘Pica Pau’, which translates as ‘Woodpecker’, and some olives. I had a fairly substantial meal planned for this evening, so we didn’t want a lot of food. The drinks came. The sky became dark, and rain started to fall. We moved from our table back into the covered area in front of the café. I still managed to get wet from the drips falling from the covers. It was fun watching the tourists scattering for cover. 

The Pica Pau was a steak and sausage dish, with gravy and melted local cheese over the top, finished with pickles, olives, and some sliced baguette bread on top. The other order of olives was rather large, black and green, and delicious.

We made short work of the food, and decided to start our tour of the ‘Caves’ with the Sandeman House. There was a museum giving the history of the company, and of the brand. We queued for a while for the tour and tasting, then realised that the next one in English wasn’t for nearly an hour and a half, so we wandered on. We had a free tasting as part of our bus ticket, so found the ‘Porto Cruz’ establishment and waited for the tasting. The young lady explained that we would be tasting a new pink port that they had developed, which must be drunk very cold. It was a bit too sweet for me, but K liked it. We went to the roof of their establishment to take a few pictures – the view was good.

One thing that we noticed on leaving this establishment and looking in one of the shops just up the street was that the shop was selling all of the ports that we had seen so far at cheaper prices than the Caves themselves. In some cases by as much as two or three Euros a bottle less. We continued our walk around the Caves. There are about thirty six wine houses in Porto, so we stood no chance of seeing them all! We visited the Burmester Cave next – only to be told that the next English tour wasn't until six thirty, but a tour in French had just started. I thought that I could managed the French, so we paid our five Euros each for the tour and tasting, and joined the, rather small, group.

After the tour, explaining the different types of port and their production, we tried a white and a tawny port, both from last year. I preferred the tawny, but they were both very good.

We walked back down the main stretch, and re-entered the oldest wine house in Porto to purchase some wine as gifts, then went to a wine shop to buy some different brands. We found our way back to the correct bus stop and waited for the 906.

The journey back was via a different route, so we missed the squeeze between buildings that we had before. It still took about forty minutes, and so it was nearly seven thirty before we got back. I cooked us something to eat, and we crawled into bed at about eleven. It was still raining – though not quite as much as the previous night. We were moving south tomorrow.

To Porto

Wednesday 10^th September

It rained a little in the night, but nothing major. We had a slow start to the morning, breakfasted on pancakes (I’m out of cereal), emptied the van, and headed off for the Orbitur Madelana at Vila Nova de Gaia, just below Porto. The sun was out again, and it got very warm. We arrived about one o’clock and drove along the seafront, parked up and got out to look at the beach. According to the satnav, there should have been motorhome parking along the beachfront, but it looks like it has been built over. I parked sideways in an empty car bay.

The beach looked lovely, with big breakers and white foamy surf. It had very few people on it, and a lifeguard – who seemed to be napping in the sun. We went back to the van and had lunch whilst observing motorists seeing who could park the closest to the van. I moved it back at one point so that I wouldn’t get hemmed in!

Finishing lunch we drove up the promenade to what seemed to be the end, then turned around and went to the camp. I checked in using my broken Spanish once again – I had to go and get my passport – first time this holiday so far. We were issued with our passes and went to find somewhere to park.

Basically, the parking consisted of bare earth under tall eucalyptus trees. There was no marking of pitches or boundaries – you could park where you wanted. We chose a position close to a walkway, not too far from the shower block and from power. I got the small doormat out, as I thought we would need it. We went to explore the shower block. It was basically clean, but very, very run down. The tiled floors seemed to be soaking, the bottoms of the stall doors were rotting in places, and had been painted over. There was no toilet paper (as there had been in the last place), it was dingy. K particularly wasn’t keen. Can’t see how this is classed as ‘Four Star Camping’. I would take clean and tidy shower blocks over a swimming pool any day.

Returning to the van we set the bikes up and went for a ride along the sea front, using the well marked cycle lanes that they had. We knew that we were about four and a half miles from the centre of Porto – so we went for it. The ride was mostly flat, and much of it on the cycle way. It took us about forty minutes before we were standing next to the tourist information in Porto. Not too bad, we thought.

We obtained some town maps and had a look to orientate ourselves. We had already ridden past the ‘cave’ of one port wine maker – Ferreira, so knew that we were in the right area. We found the Sandeman cave which had a café in front of it. We pulled the bikes up onto the wide walkway and sat down for a drink. K had a ‘Sandeman’s Founders Reserve Port’ with ice and some mint leaves. I had a local draught beer – ‘Sagres’. Both very nice. We sat for a while and answered questions about our electric bikes from a few people. The weather was changing, and we felt a few spots of rain.

We drank up and continued down the front of the river Douro, toward the Luiz 1^st Bridge. Crossing the bridge with the bikes was an experience. It’s quite narrow, with small walkways either side. The walkways were really too small to take the bikes, and riding meant that nothing could pass us. K zoomed on ahead. I got stuck on the walkway whilst trying to take a photo. I put the bike down onto the roadway when I spotted a gap in the traffic, and went for it.

After a while sitting and looking at the river from the other side we re-crossed the bridge, picked up some tourist leaflets and began to head back. We determined to come back by bus tomorrow, so that we wouldn’t have to worry about storing the bikes somewhere. The weather changed again, and we rode back to the camp site in sunshine. I used the motor a fair bit on the return, as did K – so the trip was fairly swift, arriving back at camp around seven thirty.

We had terrific rainstorms that evening hammering on the van roof. There were rivers of water flowing past the van, and forming large pools. Our doormat was truly inundated. I was glad that I hadn’t left my shoes outside – they would have floated away.

What with that and the ‘crack!’ every now and then as one of the large seed pods from the eucalyptus trees landed on the roof, it was a fairly noisy evening. It calmed down later, enough for us to get to sleep.