To Portugal
Busy morning packing and keeping to weight, we were not sure what the allowed weight was, we checked on the web for Easyjet and they had strict rules for everything except weight, but AirNZ have an 8 k maximum so we stuck to that. We were only taking cabin baggage so we didn't want to be caught with a big extra fee. The cabin baggage had to be one bag only, within their measurements, and that included any handbags and/or duty free. When your cabin bag with wheels weighs over 3 k to start with it is amazingly difficult to pare everything down to a bare minimum. Fortunately we knew Porto was going to be hot so we only needed T shirts and light clothes.
Rachel dropped us off at the airport in plenty of time, we had our boarding passes already via their website. So all we had to do was find the Easyjet counter and check out the gate number, but of course we were too early, they showed up on departures but without the gate number. We sat down for half an hour or so wandering up and down occasionally to find the departure lounge. We saw a likely couple of oldies and decided to follow them and fortunately for us they went right to it, it was for all flights so that was us! We had no problem getting through and before long the gate was showing up on the departure screen for Porto, so we went over and sat there. Not long and we were queuing up, it was interesting to see how many women were not allowed through the gate carrying a handbag plus a cabin bag, they had to step out of the queue and almost repack so that they could squeeze their handbag into their cabin bag, thank goodness we had accounted for that. On the other hand we didn't need to worry about weight, they don't have a limit with one cabin bag, I guess there's only so much you can put in!
We had a pretty uneventful trip (that has to be a bonus) the nice cabin steward told us she had lived in Newtown and her sister lived in Auckland, they were both French! The trip only took an hour and fifty minutes, and although a very bumpy ride, it was interesting to look out of the windows and see a big lake somewhere in Spain down below us.
We had been advised by our hotel to take the Metro as it was only about 2 mins from the hotel, the cost would be about €3 or a taxi would be about €25! So being such seasoned travellers by now, we found the Metro, and knew we needed to get off at Trindade, we found the machine selling tickets, and looked like typical 'olds' fumbling around trying to insert notes, counting up coins, etc, and a nice customer relations officer helped us out. So we got onto the correct platform side for the train to Trindade, and off we went. We had been told it would take about half an hour to get in, so along with dozens of other travellers with luggage sticking out in the passage ways we squinted at the line map above the doors and spotted our station. The trip was not underground so we saw the typical outskirts of a big city centre, graffiti and dirty walls, shabby gardens and in contrast some lovely houses and pretty parks.
Trindade Metro station, our hotel was the black building almost at the top of this photo.
We got off at Trindade station which is a sort of hub for travellers going out on four lines. As we left the station we checked out the street that our hotel was on, it couldn't be far away if it was only two mins walk. Fortunately we chose the uphill road which was correct and two mins later we were on the red carpet to our hotel!
We checked in, took lots of brochures inviting us on many tours and then went up to our room to sort out our itinerary. It's always a special feeling when you arrive in your hotel room and can discard your shoes and sprawl on the bed!
So we decided the best way to see Porto was to go on a bus tour, there were two we fancied, one for tomorrow (history and beaches, including a tasting of two port wines at a recommended cellar) and the other for the next day (castles and seafood restaurants).
So we went down to the lobby to get some advice on where to eat, and they gave us their suggestions, 4 in all, mostly Portuguese dinning restaurants, which suited us fine.
We had our two complimentary ports in the bar, and then went out to take the evening air and nod to the locals. So warm, the wind was welcome - Portugal is on the same 41deg as Wellington! We aimed for Cantineta - which was the closest recommended restaurant, Italian apparently, but studying our tourist map we went the wrong way and ended up at the next recommendation, the Abadia, genuine Portugese cuisine!
Quite a delightful place, very busy, lovely tiles decorating the walls, great service and a waiter who spoke some English to translate the menu.
What I like about French restaurants is that they give you French bread cut up ready to munch through while you wait for your meal to be cooked, and they also bring the water and/or wine out very quickly before the meal is ready. So I was very impressed when not only the bread, but butter, cheese and olives were served, along with the water, and then the waiter took our order. We weren't too sure what we had ordered, but that was part of the experience!
Mains - veal rib for two, it came to the table on a platter with a flame underneath and the waiter cooked at it at the table. It rook a little time to get to medium rare, so we turned our attention to the vegetable dish, it was cabbage mainly shredded and mixed with caraway seed and another veg which I couldn't recognise but was really tasty, also rice and frites (which are slices of potato cooked in oil like chips). The meat was really delicious, and must have been marinated, it didn't really need much cooking, the waiter cut into small pieces off the bone, and was perfect without any condiments. We just had coffee to follow. Then we got the bill, it included what we thought were complimentary starters as we hadn't ordered them, but we had eaten them so we happily paid. Interesting!
It was a lovely warm walk back to the hotel, another nice day.
No comments:
Post a Comment