Somewhere Slowly

When we came back to Porto, staying in a very nice room on a busy street in the city centre, we wanted to make the most of our last night before we started walking. We had a late lunch and tiny planning session in a lovely place called The Happy Nest, which has a garden at the back and good food, and for some reason the barman brought us free drinks as an apology, though we had no idea what for. We just thanked him and accepted. Afterwards, on our way to find the sushi buffet, Nanci decided she wanted to try the tuk-tuk tour of the city. Our driver was the lovely, bubbly Susana, a lady our age with a great sense of humour and a penchant for driving fast down the narrow lanes. We went for the one hour tour, and what an hour it was.

From the highlights and steep alleyways of Porto itself we went across the bridge – of course we had to cross a scary looking bridge, that would soon become a theme – to Gaia, where we could see Porto from the other side. Susana parked up on a square by a round tower – the Mosteiro da Serra do Pilar – so we could join the masses of people, locals and tourists, that flocked there every night to see the sun set over the Douro river! It was magic!

Then we carried on along the winding streets of Gaia, on the other side of the river, down to the riverfront with all the bars and restaurants, and an even closer view of the Porto side. She told us about the history and soul of the city, why the trees in the park are so misshapen, how to tell the difference between hand painted and mass produced tiles, that the reason even small houses have so many windows is because there was one family in every room … A very memorable trip which I wasn’t expecting to enjoy as much as I did. Next time I am in Porto I might even venture across the scary bridge river to see the sun set again.

Back in Porto we said goodbye to the cheerful Susana and went to a restaurant across the street for our pension to have a little meal. The food was supposed to be excellent, and it was, but the best thing was the waitress, who was forever running after people with hats, scarves and shopping bags they had left behind, and apologised for her running off by topping up our glasses of good albarinho free of charge … Then it was time to get back to our room and try to get a good night’s sleep before we set off the next morning.