An Expat In Italy: North and South

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

North and South

I wasn't sure what to expect when in Portugal. To be honest, it was never a place on my "list" and so I was shocked when it became a vacation destination. And not shocked in a bad way, like "I can't believe I'm going here!" but more of a "hmmm.... never thought I'd ever go here". I even remember talking to the health nurse back in Saskatchewan when getting shots for overseas living and she asked specifically if I was going to Portugal. I can guarantee that I didn't get those shots I could have used because really, who'd have thunk?!?! As a Europe travelling newbie, there were definitely other places I had in mind first. Along these lines of thinking, upon relating our ski week travel plans to family and colleagues there were mixed reactions, from "I've heard it's beautiful!" to "Why are you going there?" During the first leg of our holiday, ie Porto, Faro and Tivaro, I was mixed in both cases, feeling like a pendulum swing at times.

We started our holidays in northern Portugal in the city of Porto. We were only going to be here about a day and a half (thanks to our missed flight, see previous post) and this personally was all the time I needed in Porto. While there were many interesting sights to see, they had to really be discovered in the old, historic, aka tourist part of the city.

Upon first glance of this area of Porto that we had descended upon, it was rather shocking and I didn't know quite what to make of it. If first impressions were all, without the surface being scraped away, I perhaps would have left the city sooner rather than later. All around us were decrepit, abandoned buildings that apparently hadn't seen a hand of love in years. Regardless of the neighbourhood or area we saw, this was very prevalent and quite sad. One could only imagine the life those buildings had once seen and now, for whatever reason, stood lonely. However, underneath the exterior was a glamour of old, especially with the "hobbit" houses (what we dubbed the EXTREMELY tiny apartments/homes), a nice group of people and pieces of history just waiting to be uncovered.

Throughout our time there we took to the land, water and skies with our ever faithful Hop-On, Hop-Off bus which also had a water cruise component, as well as enjoyed the funicular and cable car. Our tour took us to various sights where we tasted Port wine (which the area is well known for, but much too sweet for my palate), saw historical buildings, enjoyed a walk along the river, viewed the cork and tile wares for sale, and enjoyed a breathtaking view of the Atlantic.

FINALLY made it to Porto!

Cannot book a ticket on TapPortugal with anything other than Mr or Mrs.

Bathroom at train station in Lisbon. Need to take the tp IN with

you to the stall. Almost made a very unfortunate move.

Shoe shiner on the street of Porto

Historic center Porto

What we dubbed "hobbit houses"

Peaceful march

Dom Luis I Bridge

Cable car over the city

Tile facade; very common in Portugal

The streets, and traffic, of Porto

The churches here were AMAZING!

Famous tiled train station, Sao Bento

Most cities in Europe have a man on a horse statue somewhere

Boat cruise group selfie (something we were getting good at)

View from Rio Duoro (the river through Porto)

Atop the Dom Luis Bridge

Cable car excursion. I nearly died! Couldn't take any pictures

while on because I was white knuckled hanging on to the bench lol.

Where there's a tower, there's an excursion to be had.

We're just suckers for stairs. :p

Up we go!

Made it! Time to document the feat.

I did it!

A view from above. LOVE seeing cities at these heights.

Port wine tasters

After our time in Porto, we jetted south to Faro in the Algarve region, said to be a beautiful area of Portugal. While Faro was a town not necessarily worth a few days visit in itself (according to some of the literature we'd read and we quickly came to that conclusion ourselves) the surrounding areas had various places said to hold majestic sights and treasures unknown that were easily accessible via train. Therefore, we used Faro as our hub to visit lovely Tavira.

Tavira was a quick train ride away, and quite affordable. I must mention that it was lucky we were in Portugal during "off" season as our many activities, residences, transports, etc. were very affordable. The charm of this little town was great and we were quite impressed with the amount of tourists that were there. We ran into a British couple at lunch who relayed that they came to Tavira quite often for their holidays. Definitely did not see Tavira as a return trip myself, but holiday destinations are each to their own.

While in Tavira we found the main square/street and enjoyed a leisurely stroll popping into shops and smelling the lovely scents emanating from the various restaurants. Now public transport isn't huge in Tavira at all, which is not surprising considering it's size, although we did partake in a miniature train ride until we were kicked off, or forgotten about - we're still not sure if it was the former without being really told or if he just thought we had gotten off with the large group earlier. When heading out to the peninsula to take a "ferry" to the island to view the ocean, we had only our legs to take us there, although bikes were apparently available to rent somewhere. On the island, or ghost town as it appeared in February, we again had the most amazing view of the Atlantic, especially when the sun finally pushed it's head out of the clouds.

Returning back into the town, exercise had, we enjoyed more sights and then headed to an Irish pub for bevies before having some traditional Portugese food which was absolutely scrumptious! It's so nice to get a break from pasta, pizza and seafood (oh my!) Then home again, home again jiggedy jig to Faro. I believe that Fabio graced us with his presence on the train that night too. ;)

The next day we were leaving via train to Lisbon but had some time to "discover" Faro a bit. It's a lovely little town with some nice amenities, and lovely boat tour providers who definitely want your business (warranted or not). Needless to say we ended up changing our tickets to head to Lisbon earlier as....well....there wasn't too much to occupy our time with. However, for a sleepy little relaxing community it was pretty nice.

But now we were ready to amp up our adventures and sightseeing so Lisbon was an anxious few hours train ride away, but we were anticipating some real fun next!