Category: Portugal

Last walk round Porto.

Disappointing day but all things are relative! Picked up the hire car without bother (although there’s always something – nearly 6 months after we were there, seem to have a speeding fine from Sicily. Ho hum – but haven’t had the fine yet, just the administrative charge!).

Anyway, we’re on the move towards Tomar

And the guidebook says Coimbra is definitely worth a large detour – it was actually on our way, but wasn’t really even worth a small detour.

It’s a really old university town, with amazing buildings, but they were either closed for lunch or fully booked. Cafe was closed and they charged €1.50 to use the loo. But just look at the colour of that sky.

And it was 37 degrees. You may recall we came later to avoid the heat …..

House is great, though.

It’s been seriously hot today – over 30 which is unexpected. In my opinion early morning is the best.

So taking it slowly (tram comes in handy!) and enjoying the views.

Coffee, followed by beers

Lunch

And so on and so on.

– very touristy

– so much English spoken

– pretty cheap on the whole

– did I mention the hills

– surprising number of Americans here

– really nice feel to it, especially on warm evenings

Having concluded the hills are a bit, well, hilly we came up with another plan involving trams. They really don’t go fast (3 miles in about 20 minutes) but fun.

More bling – not really to our taste

And then much better a trundle along the river to the beach.

And then a decent view for lunch

Apparently one “delicacy” is a toasted cheese and steak sandwich in a Francesina sauce – an experience that was ok but probably never to be repeated!

Famous Harry Potter bookshop with a massive queue and an €8 entry fee (refundable if you buy a book) which we resisted.

Fabulous city, albeit as hilly as its reputation. But some great photos, starting first thing:

And some not so great …..

Main station first thing

and later on …

Stopped for a coffee

And some serious bling

Taxi wouldn’t take us home as it wasn’t far enough – probably true but seriously uphill in parts.

Bit more sightseeing later on

And ended up eating Korean (although we didn’t know what it was when we walked in, and hadn’t a clue what we ordered – it’s a longish story) for the first time which was great.

Knackered!