2:50pm - taking a brief rest before my pastry walking tour. Set out a little before 9, grabbed a quick breakfast, and went to the Palacio da Bolsa, the old stock exchange. Got a ticket for 12:30 as that was the first English tour available. with my newfound free morning, I walked across the lower bridge to Gaia, where all the port houses are. it's technically a separate city. wandered a bit and decided I had nothing better to do than take a Douro river boat cruise. It lasted about 45 minutes and was nice if chilly. After the boat, I tried to go into one of the port houses - they offer tours - but they had nothing until the afternoon and I didn't feel like trying another one so I meandered back and wandered a bit. For a quick lunch before my palace tour, I had a quick two euro chicken filet sandwich.
The Bolsa palace is quite incredible, especially the Arabian room, which was decorated in that style because it was popular in the late 1800s. Then came back here to rest a little before the pastry tour!
9:00pm - back for an early night, which is good because I move on tomorrow and have packing and whatnot to do tonight, plus it started raining. Met up with the pastry tour at 3:30. It was actually two lovely guides, a pastry chef named Rafaella (i think and hope), who's Brasilian and lived in Florida and Madrid, and Ana who's from Porto. We went to five different bakeries all over town and tried ten different things overall. There were only four people on the tour, so that was nice! Tried everything from the nata from Lisbon to the queijada from Sintra to a meat pastry that was basically the Portuguese version of a kreplach, a Portuguese eclair, almond pastry, and everything in between. So delicious! Learned that they use so much egg yolks in the pastries here because the nuns would use egg whites to iron clothes with, so they had all these egg yolks left and thankfully for us made pastries with them! And unbelievablly this tour was only 15 euros! Amazingly, the last stop was a place I randomly choose for breakfast the other day. Apparently it's one of the best bakeries in town!
Came back to the apartment for a quick second and wandered a bit to the shopping area by the market. Peeked in majestic cafe, which was apparently visited by jk Rowling when she lived here. She apparently married a man from Porto for less than two years. While here, it seems she drew much inspiration for Harry potter, like the stairs in the Lello bookstore and the black costumes/capes students wear. I guess this would mean more to me if I ever read Harry potter. It was starting to train lightly, so I decided to go to the little wine bar at the end of the street for a very light snack, since dinner was obviously unnecessary. Had a glass of vinho verde and five little pie snacks - chicken, cheese, veggie, ham, sausage, for 6 euros. Interestingly, all these meat things here are served room temperature. I feel like that'd never happen in the US?
Now it's back to the adjustment to take a hair dryer to my clothes, which are still damp because it's been so chilly and humid here. Tomorrow it's off to Coimbra for a night!
9:00pm - back for an early night, which is good because I move on tomorrow and have packing and whatnot to do tonight, plus it started raining. Met up with the pastry tour at 3:30. It was actually two lovely guides, a pastry chef named Rafaella (i think and hope), who's Brasilian and lived in Florida and Madrid, and Ana who's from Porto. We went to five different bakeries all over town and tried ten different things overall. There were only four people on the tour, so that was nice! Tried everything from the nata from Lisbon to the queijada from Sintra to a meat pastry that was basically the Portuguese version of a kreplach, a Portuguese eclair, almond pastry, and everything in between. So delicious! Learned that they use so much egg yolks in the pastries here because the nuns would use egg whites to iron clothes with, so they had all these egg yolks left and thankfully for us made pastries with them! And unbelievablly this tour was only 15 euros! Amazingly, the last stop was a place I randomly choose for breakfast the other day. Apparently it's one of the best bakeries in town!
Came back to the apartment for a quick second and wandered a bit to the shopping area by the market. Peeked in majestic cafe, which was apparently visited by jk Rowling when she lived here. She apparently married a man from Porto for less than two years. While here, it seems she drew much inspiration for Harry potter, like the stairs in the Lello bookstore and the black costumes/capes students wear. I guess this would mean more to me if I ever read Harry potter. It was starting to train lightly, so I decided to go to the little wine bar at the end of the street for a very light snack, since dinner was obviously unnecessary. Had a glass of vinho verde and five little pie snacks - chicken, cheese, veggie, ham, sausage, for 6 euros. Interestingly, all these meat things here are served room temperature. I feel like that'd never happen in the US?
Now it's back to the adjustment to take a hair dryer to my clothes, which are still damp because it's been so chilly and humid here. Tomorrow it's off to Coimbra for a night!
Today's totals: 26,199 steps, 10.42 miles, 74 floors.... So much for a lighter walking day!!
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