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!

Triple hotel room.

Can't remember the last time I'd slept on a twin bed :p

Streets of Tavira.

Watch where you are going: the sidewalk's are the 

same material as the streets :s

Tavira square

 

Gilao River

 

Abandoned factories (?) on the way to the island

 

Water ferry

Isla Tavira

Gifts from some local gentlemen.  Steph's is the big

one in the middle ;) Hmmm......

It was kind of a quiet day :p

 

 

 

My first touch of the Atlantic 

 

 

Tavira Castle gardens

 

Climbing up the castle walls 

Someone stayed safely on the ground

 

View from above

 

 

And....the jumping pictures began

 

Very interesting fauna here

Fancy street signs (again, plastered to the building)

Seven arch Roman bridge

 

 Faro

More jumping to be done

Beautiful weather today!

 

Part of the old city walls

An American, a Canadian and an Australian go on vacation...... It was only the beginning....

So....ski week (aka February break for those back at home in Canada) was upon us and a couple of friends and I decided to head to Portugal.  Why Portugal? Good question!  I found myself asking that very question at times too.  I ask right back, "Why not?"  We were looking for a warm, decently priced vacation and for the most part got what we were looking for (the latter of the two is what I'm speaking to here).

Needless to say, Friday came and an American, a Canadian and an Australian fled the school grounds for a week long vacation.  What awaited them?  Well, that's the story we all want to hear.... (And some of us are not sure whether we're ready to relive it lol).

It all started off with the cab being late for picking us up from school.  Now normally we'd take a bus to the train station, but today we were on a tight schedule so we needed a quick get away and a cab that was (or was supposed to be).  

Let me pause here to let you know that we more often than not fly out of Milan as there are very few flights leaving Genoa for our holiday destination choices and those that do fly out of here are PRICEY!  Needless to say the travel time to the flight is quite extended as the train to Milan is 2 hrs and then it's an hour or so from there to the airports.

So after a few minutes waiting for our cab we called again and luckily the man who showed up understood we were in a crisis: needing to be down town in 15 minutes to catch our train.  Had we been on the Amazing Race this man would have been our life saver as we were at the train station in record time.  Breathing kinda heavily, suitcases on hyper mode and moving as though we were Richard Simmons in mid workout we found our platform only to learn that our train was 15 minutes delayed.  Well, all that rush for naught hey?  So grabbing some snacks we hunkered down and  waited.

And waited.

And waited.

What was to be a 15 min delay turned into 20, then 25 quite quickly.  And this seemed to be the pattern for the ENTIRE trip to Milan.  Let me say that we were kinda pushing our luck with our Friday night flight to Porto, Portugal.  If all went well, we were to arrive at the airport approximately 1-1.5 hrs before our flight which SHOULD have been plenty of time.

But what could go wrong....

Definitely did that Friday, February 20th evening.

Our train was 1 HOUR late in arriving in Milan and we still needed to get to the airport.  Flight time: 8:30pm; time at this moment: 7:00pm.  Prayers were said and decisions needed to be made hastily.  A bus to the airport would take a minimum 1 hour from time of departure (and who knew when that would be), the train at least 50 minutes (but only leaves twice an hour), so....option #3 it was: cab.  Let's just say, to our dismay, this man was in no hurry whatsoever.  Had he been our driver on the Amazing Race, we would have lost. Badly! :(  Do you know how frustrating it is to be sitting in a car, no control at all, and watch all the other cars whiz by you in the left hand lanes? *sigh*

Arriving at the airport just before 8:00pm, hearts very heavy with anticipation for what awaited us inside, we drove our suitcases into the airport and looked for the TAP Portugal check-in desk.  Guess what?  There wasn't one to be found. :(  Thus we approached the Uzbekistan flight desk, which was looking pretty good at this point, to learn that yep, we were too late.  Even the check-in desk was dried up and abandoned.

Dejected, ready to cry, disheartened and frustrated we headed to find someone who could help us figure out what to do next.  I, and my flight companions, had NEVER missed a flight before in our lives so this was new territory to us: both emotionally and mentally.

After being directed to the "help" desk, we found out that changing our flight was not an option so we'd have to book an entirely new flight. Yikes!  Now the trip was taking a financial turn we all did not anticipate.  In talking with the "help" lady, we quickly realized that booking through her would mean a definite increase in price.  So, phones/ipads in hand we found a comfy, cozy spot in the airport and started looking for new flights.

Flights were found but unfortunately, 3 different credit cards later, nothing could be booked.  At this point certain letters (aka W, T and F) were flying through our minds and yes, let's just admit, out our mouths.  Still dejected, frustrated, heartbroken, etc. etc. we headed for comfort food (aka McDonalds) to decide our next move.

Over salads and grease, we figured that nothing more could be done tonight so we'd have to return EARLY in the morning to talk to the "help" desk again.  Therefore, we needed a plan of action for tonight.  Stay at the airport?  Get a hotel room?  Well, we figured since s*&^ already hit the fan, we might as well get a few hours of sleep in a bed before dealing with our woes the next day.  Luckily finding a close, cheap hotel was easier than getting a new flight the next day. So, at 11:30 pm we were headed via shuttle (at least SOMETHING was looking up) to our hotel.

4 hours later......

Yep, that's right.  Only 4 short hours were spent in the hotel which accounted for checking in, sleeping, rising, getting ready and checking out, and then we were back on our way to the airport.  Fingers crossed and a worried silence enveloped the cab that fateful morning.  Before we knew it there we were.....4:45am and back at the scene of the crime.

Apparently luck can change after a good (?? nope, that's not the word to describe it) ... let's just say after a nap.

We encountered a very helpful, pleasant lady at the "help" desk who was able to book us in for flights to Lisbon at 6:30am that day. Price?  Let's not mention that part.  All we knew was we would finally be on our way to our long awaited vacation.

From there on in it was smooth sailing.  Who would've thunk?!?!

Security: check.
Flight: check.
Luggage arriving in Lisbon: check.
Metro to the train station: easy peasy.
Train to Porto: no problem.
Cab to hotel: ready and waiting.

Finally: our holiday was about to begin. Bring on Porto and some expats looking to have some fun. :)