🇵🇹 Beautiful Porto

We then made our altered plan drive (ie straight to Portugal) – it was another twisty turny drive that Kim really struggled with.  To our amazement daily temperatures here are around 18 degrees during the day. Different to what we experienced in Spain 2 to 8 degree.s

We arrived in Porto – our first taste of Portugal.  We are staying for 3 nights in an amazing place, an hour’s walk from the centre – we are on  the Atlantic Ocean in a mind blowing apartment ($80/night) – with ocean views!   We spent the day yesterday wandering through the town – walking across the bridges, looking at the old town, and we visited a famous bookshop (which you have to buy tickets to enter!) – that supposedly inspired JK Rowling when she was writing Harry Potter – it was very atmospheric!  We even caught an historic tram along the water.  Lots of steep hills and walking!  We also visited the railway station – which is covered in a mosaic of beautiful hand painted blue tiles.

Today (Thursday) – we are having a chill day and will later go for a walk along the beach. Tomorrow we leave and continue our way down the coast towards Lisbon where we will spend Xmas.   We are looking forward to some more natural sights and to fewer mountains for a while.  This apartment has certainly been a highlight – especially watching the sun set into the ocean.

Another reason we loved Porto was that it was much more than just a city  – it had a beautiful rocky coastline.  So we left our apartment to try the other direction – having gone to the city along the river the previous day.  We did a beautiful hour walk along  the beaches and discovered the beach cafes – located on the sand right near the waves – very cool.  Food was crap – but view was very cool.   This was very much a pebble-style beach – shoes needed!  Huge rock formations allowed the waves to spray up as if washing a beast.  Fishing was very popular but water too cold for swimming!