We woke up this morning and headed to the bus station to go to Porto! We both managed to sleep for some parts of the ride, but the scenery or at least what I did see what nothing extraordinary. Thankfully I didn’t have it feel bad about not being able to keep my eyes open.
Once we got it the we walked up the many hills to out hostel. This is completely different than Lisbon. The streets are all so much narrow and weave into one another like a maze. The local life seem much more authentic here, ladies hang list of laundry form their balconies, people sit in cafes nursing their drinks while socializing with one another and people watching. Many shops are all so unique here. Their is a local shop for everything varying from door hinges to even door knobs. Many of the buildings here are not only very old since Porto is a UNESCO city but also abandoned. Rent control was removed a few years ago, leaving landlords with no money to properly restore their property since it is so expensive to get them back to their original form. It was rather unfortunate to see so many buildings that were crumbling.
After getting to our hostel we had some lunch before we got picked up for our walking tour. We went on ‘alternative’ tour of Porto. It’s focus was about Art and Romanticism, our guide was so much fun and passionate about her hometown. We walked through the streets and leaned that the English had provided a substantial amount of funding for Porto to build many of their buildings, therefore many of them have English charms about them. As we visited one sight from the other I noticed that there were a lot of street art, both in the form of murals and graffiti. Apparently the former mayor made any street are illegal and painted over any existing artwork. The current mayor has allowed street are and has dedicated certain ares of the city for artists to paint freely. We then went to the old jail and court house, where Camilo stayed and wrote one of his most famous works. It has now ben converted to a library, but you can apparently still see his cell if you go inside and look for his publications. We then passed the Clerigos Tower, now when it was built even though it is just stories hight it was the tallest building in Portugal and apparently all of the sailers use to use this as an landmark to know where to go back to. Towards the end of the your we went down Art Galleries Street. In Porto there are apparently thirty art galleries all around and just on this one street I counted five art galleries on just one block. To end the tour we went to Crystal Palace Gardens where I learned what a turn romantic garden is. So to have a romantic garden you need to have an avenue with trees lined on either side with benches that are lined either along the sides or middle and you must have a lake ink the somewhat close distance. Walking through this garden we made our way to a view of the Douro River. Afterwards, Andrea and I made our way back to our hostel, had some dinner and prepped ourselves for another busy day of exploring tomorrow!