Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Porto, Portugal

On our way to Porto, we stopped at a small village to visit this bread maker, who once was a maid in the house of the dictator Salazar.  In her mind, Salazar was a father figure and gave her an opportunity to go to school.  No one can say any other individual is 100% good or bad, it all depends on each's experience I guess.  The freshly baked bread only tasted so-so.


I found a statue of Salazer in Porto and in Guimaraes.  He was a university professor before he was invited to become a politician, and later a dictator.  Below is a statue of him in Guimaraes:

Porto is to be experienced on site in person!! The following pictures only showed some glimpses of the old city.  Almost at every turn you see a UNESCO sign.






 Flags of port wine companies along the waterfront:


 Old cable car still runs up and down:




 

 



 
Take bus 500, with 1.95 Euro you can ride along the waterfront northbound and come to the mouth of the river meeting the Atlantic ocean.

 


Inside the parliament/stock market


At the train station:

In front of the book store that inspired the author of Harry Potter series, and inside of the bookstore:


We also visited the Art Museum, where a number of exhibits of Anish Kapoor's model were shown.

Above from left to right: KC, Larisa(from California), Grace (husband Bob Chen who took the picture), and me on the lawn of the Art Museum.

View from our hotel, and charcoal picture in our hotel lobby:
 Outside our hotel door:
 Many beautifully done charcoal pictures in display at the lobby.  I like this hotel a lot.  Very conveniently located with very friendly staff, although the breakfast was only so-so.

Douro Valley, Portugal

The ride from Santiago to Douro Valley was quite pretty.  We even stopped in a little town called Ourence by the Douro River, and soaked in a community hot spring pool by the roadside.  Totally free of charge!.




Then we reached Pinhao for our two nights stay in this beautiful resort.
 The view from our hotel window:

 Pinhao is a little hill village by Duoro River.
 A view from our breakfast table.
 The yard of our hotel:

 Went on a little hike to the hill and took a picture from above.
 





We rode on a private boat over a stretch of the Duoro Rio.  The Terrence of grape vines was simply magnificent.
Today port wine is exclusively produced in Duoro Valley, as a designation of origin to protect quality.. The first detailed account of port production came from Englishman in 1678.  They described it as "very agreeable, sweetish and extremely smooth"

We visited a winery and had a cooking lesson:





We will now head to Porto, our last stop on this tour.