Two (& a bit) days in Porto

Back at the beginning of the year I woke one morning & as I sleepily wandered downstairs for my first (probably of many) coffee I thought “… I wonder how much a plane ticket to Porto would cost in the autumn …” .. so with coffee in hand I did what anyone would have done with that thought .. I googled it .. and to my delight it was a really good price .. now was to find accommodation and I knew what to look for as a few months earlier I had read a blog post about Porto .. so once again I added dates and again .. not bad, not bad I thought ..  I immediately rang Mr W to suggest it .. and that’s exactly what he thought and within 30 minutes flights and accommodation was booked … now all we had to was wait ….

We stayed at was The Mercador Guesthouse and is set within the art area of Porto and is perfect as a base for exploring Porto.  We were in room No 6 – Goa which is classed as a basic room, but to be honest it had everything we needed .. a very comfy king size bed and good en-suite, the room itself was located at the top of the guesthouse .. so it was very good for our legs, but it was worth it (there is not an option of lift as this is a townhouse).

Our first day in Porto was rather damp, with lots of torrential rainshowers, but we didn’t let that stop us, so armed with umbrellas off we set.  Of course in-between the rain photos were of course taken.

I had of course seen on the internet & heard about the amazing churches & buildings which are tiled but seeing them was another thing, these buildings are truly stunning.   Of course a lot of walking (& snapping when able) calls for a few pit stops along the way, and the one thing to have was the traditional Portuguese Pastel de Nata .. always delicious.

What I didn’t realise was how hilly Porto was .. it certainly got our thighs working hard.   We slowly made our way toward the River Douro taking the sights along the way, but even with the rain it was still rather beautiful.

And then just like magic the rain stopped and the sun came out .. which made exploring and seeing the sights so much easier with no umbrella blocking your view.

We of course had to visit the famous Sao Bento Train Station, which again is a wonderfully tiled building, it really is breathtaking the amount of detail this building has.

Every where you turned there were photos to be taken .. or photos insta hubby’s needed to take!

Being a typical “intsagrammer” I spotted hints of autumn everywhere … and I couldn’t not stop and snap.

Although we were only there for (give or take) two and half days, we managed to see so much, for us it was just the right of amount of time.  It of course goes with saying that I loved our time together, we don’t always plan what we want to see and much prefer to see where our feet take us, some times stumbling across some beautiful buildings, but that really suits us.

I honestly could have added another 4972 photos to this post, as I took so many photos .. it really is a lovely city and if you are thinking of visiting I would definitely say do .. but take flat and comfortable shoes as it is super hilly.

As always I am now thinking about our next adventure … Mr W being totally used to my planning ways by now .. I’ll keep you posted.

 

Niki xx