IL. Porto

Captain’s Log: Sunday, 21 July 2019

Distance: Sightseeing

Accommodation: Airbnb

Weather: Sun

Today’s note to myself: Remember Free Walking Tours, they are quite good for a first impression of a city.

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I actually thought I would just walk around in Porto, looking where I could find nice looking buildings as I did in other cities, but at some point I stumbled across a tour guide with his group, who was talking in English, so I decided to just follow them like a lost puppy.

That was one of the better decisions during my journey because the tour guide knew a lot about his city and he also managed to teach it to us in a very fun and sympathetic way. I also asked him if it was okay for me to just randomly join them, and it was no problem.

Porto is very hilly, so I was glad that I did not have to walk around without a plan.

Apparently that was a book store where J.K. Rowling was and also wrote a bit of Harry Potter. I didn’t know that she lived in Porto for two years?

We also visited the train station which had beautiful paintings of some historical moments of Portugal.

We ended the tour at a cathedral from where we had another amazing view.

I got to talk with a group of German girls during the tour, and since I did not know what else I would have wanted to do, I asked them if I could join them on their plans, which was another one of my better decisions. I had a very nice time with those four women, we first went to get something to eat and then for some frozen yogurt.

Afterwards we joined a boat ride up and down on the river which separates Porto from, I think the other city is called Gaia? From these two cities combined, Portugal has its name.

With the boat tickets we also got two tickets for a Port wine testing.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to take a bottle with me, even though they were quite good.

It was already getting late, but the German girls invited me to their place for watching a movie and dinner, which I gladly accepted. It was so nice to do stuff again with other people instead of alone, and they just accepted me into their group so well too!

But now it is getting late and I hope, I won’t oversleep tomorrow.