Porto and Braga

For the past 5 days we’ve been in the north of Portugal - specifically, we stayed in Porto and drove over to Braga (Guimaraes). The areas are beautiful, but not as picturesque as the Lisbon area.  

We arrived here late afternoon on July 4 and checked into our hotel.  After parking in the smallest parking garage you have ever seen, we unpacked and headed to dinner.  After dinner, we mapped out the next day and relaxed.  

We headed to Braga the next morning to see the Bom Jesus, a cathedral/monastery/hotel complex.  Braga is known for this place.  The problem for taking pictures is that the air has been less than pristine (in fact, try so murky that you cannot see far).  That made it impossible to get the view pictures that you would want at Bom Jesus - ‘bom’ means ‘good’, BTW.  I took a few anyway and will try to fix them in PhotoShop when I get home (I use the online version and the internet here is almost dial-up speed). So, I have a couple of pictures that I will post, but nothing I found spectacular.

We drove around northern Portugal a bit after that.  Had dinner in a small town at a family-owned and operated restaurant.  Excellent food.  We drove back to Porto via the ocean route:  through several really small beach towns.  We did that to see the sights, but also to avoid the new toll roads:  if you don’t have a ‘fasttrack’ type gizmo, you get penalized for driving on these roads.  Since we don’t want an extra cost from the rental car agency, we avoided the roads.  

Next, we decided to stay in Porto and see the town.  We again took a Hop On Hop Off bus:  2 days plus a river cruise and port wine tasting.  We did the main route the first day - that took about 3 hours to make the complete circle.  The problem with these buses is that they don’t slow down so you can take pictures.  We did get a few pictures - mostly I got a sunburn.  On day 2, we took the secondary route, did the river cruise, and did the port wine tasting.  Best part of my day!  I may have to make a glass of tawny port and a piece of dark chocolate be my dessert every night. What a lovely end to an evening.

Today, we took the metro to the beach and walked about a bit. Nothing to write home about - or really take pictures of.  Lee looked into diving here - but they don’t do dives here - they would take him down to Peniche.  Instead, we shopped - not much, because I think I’ll get presents when we return to Lisbon at the end.  The shops and prices were better, and I don’t have to carry everything around for 3 weeks.  I think for our purposes, we stayed a day too long in Porto.

In the morning, we head down to the Algarve region - we have 9 days in a condo there before heading to Madeira Island.  There is a lot of diving in both of those places, so it should be nice.  Plus, we’ll have a washing machine.  Six weeks of travel means washing clothes becomes necessary.  

Will post pictures shortly.  Hope everyone is staying safe back home.  We are reading crazy stuff about Minnesota and Dallas.  I really think the world is going nuts!  

Ciao.