1 Porto, 2 Porto, 3 Porto...Floor!

Ok so Porto Portugal is a huge wine making city in Portugal. Huge as in makes a lot of wine NOT as in size! It's a really small old town with great food! Well...not all the food is great...
The first night we arrived our flight was delayed 2 hours so we didn't get there until like 9:30 or 10 and were starving so we found a small little bar (like 9 x 9 small) and asked for a menu. Well the waitress/owner looked at us like we were crazy...like why would they have a menu? She just asked us what we wanted so we basically just said whatever is good. We ended up having some fried pork chops with fried potatoes (like the buffalo chips at Bdubs but better) and rice. It was amazing!

The next day we decided to explore a bit and got a tour bus pass which included a wine tasting and a boat tour for just 19 euro. It was great because the bus was like a taxi, we could just get off and back on whenever and the ticket lasted for 24 hours. So we got a little bit of a tour until we were hungry and got off and walked to a cafe. It looked pretty good with a bakery counter/window in the middle and it was big with a lot of people so we sat down and got a menu. Well I have failed to mention how hard it is to communicate in a foreign country, go figure! We didn't know what anything was and when we asked the waitress she would just reply in Portuguese, which does no good obviously. So a man next to us tried to help us a little because he spoke a little of Spanish and English. He explained to us that one of the sandwiches was very popular in Porto which had steak, sausage, and cheese, and a sauce, so we picked that.   Ohhh it was so gross! It was basically a big sandwhich in a big bowl of nasty tomato soup with some weird kind of steak inside (not a typical steak), 2 different kinds of sausage (which were also disgusting),  ham, and olive loaf (YUCK!). So yea...it was really gross. So to make up for the gross meal of course we got dessert! (YUMM)

So later we got back on the bus and finished our tour with wine tasting. We had to walk a bit but it was definitely worth it. We got a little tour of the wine cellar with some background information on how they make the wine. *Fun fact: They stop fermenting Porto wine after 3 days because every day it ferments after that it loses sugar and of course the alcohol. Hence the title of this blog ;) It was really sweet and very strong wine, so it was a good thing we were just tasting. I was very tempted to buy a bottle at the airport because they had one that was called Porto Pink! (Sooo me) However, it probably would have taken me way too long to finish that, and if it didn't it would be way too dangerous.

After the wine tasting we went on our boat tour at just the perfect time. We just went up and down the river which took about 45 minutes and it was just when the sun was setting so we got some beautiful pictures of that! Then it was time for dinner and being in Porto, I was strangely in the mood for some fish so I had sea bass which was served whole on my plate, scary but very delicious! To finish up the night we went to a little club/lounge on the way back. It was really cute with a couple of floors. We were sent upstairs for the woman's bathroom but no one was up there so we asked the bartender what they usually have up there and he said there was a band that was coming in about 30 minutes. So we drank a bit of wine and waited. Well about 2 hours later we decided we were done waiting and started to leave as the band was walking in. We didn't stay though because we had a long day, so we headed back to the hostel.


The next day we were on a mission to get to the beach. Mind you we were staying right by the water (the river), so we figured it would be pretty close. Well after walking and walking, and walking some more, we realized it wasn't so close. So we stopped and had lunch on the river, literally the building was built over the river and basically all windows. It was really neat and I had a great pasta, spinach, ricotta dish. So then we continued on our mission to get to the beach. Finally after about another 30 minutes of walking, we made it! So we sat on the beach in our jeans and long sleeved shirts and soaked up the sun. It was beautiful and really relaxing.

After about an hour of soaking up the sun we decided to head back because it was getting kind of chilly. We really didn't want to walk to whole way back so we took the trolley! Such a great deal, only 1.50 euro. Finally we wrapped up our long day with a meal and headed back to the hostel.


Overall, I really loved Porto. It was amazing to see how old the buildings were and everything. I mean one of the public transportation options was a trolley and it was like straight out of the 1800's. I really wish I would have had some more pork chops but I was determined to try as many new things as I could oh which I forgot to mention, seviche was one of them. UGhh and I'm so mad that I tried it. If you've ever watched "Monsters Inside Me" on the Animal Planet you would know why. Ok well that's all for now. Stay tuned for my adventures in Amsterdam!