River of Gold Viking River Cruise
Day 11: Monday, November 18, 2024 - Porto, Portugal
The day's statistics:
- Weather: low 60s
- Steps: 14,447 Linda; 15,244 Steve
- Miles traveled (approximately): 8
Breakfast was the usual egg benedict and light buffet for each of us.
This morning's first excusion, Porto on Foot, started at 8:30.
We started by walking along the riverside to where the bus was parked. We were about fifteen minutes early, for some
reason, but it allowed us to see this morning rainbow.
While the excursion was called "on foot", we were driven to the top of the hilltop, and walked almost all of the rest
of the way back to the ship.
The bus dropped us off at the ship side of the iron bridge that provided an overlook of the city (our ship was over
there in the distance on the left in the second shot).
After walking across the bridge and up an incling, we bared left to the top where there was the Porto Cathedral,
the Bishop's Palace, and some spectacular views.
We eventually went inside the Cathedral.
After the church, we toured some of the chapels, and saw the courtyard attached to the church.
The walls on the interior near the courtyard were covered in blue and white tile (we saw these between the chapels,
but I put them all together for viewing).
We passed back through the church on the way out.
Back outside the church, we proceeded partially down the incline whence we came, and turned left at the fork, heading
further into the city, to the train station Porto São Bento that happened to have more than 20,000 tiles.
We went inside the terminal, and saw more blue and white painted tiles.
After departing , we continued "downhill" which brought us to a main shopping street.
At one point we passed a rubber duck shop, similar to what we saw in
Prague last year.
After some more history and sightseeing, we were let free for about a half hour.
Rather than seek out coffee, we decided to do some souvenier shopping as this was another country - and the first opportunity
to actually get any Portugese memorabilia, even though we'd already been in the country for almost two weeks.
After our shopping, we essentially hung around the area to bide our time people watching until we continued on.
As we walked down the slope, more and different blue and white tiles were pointed out on different facades.
Further on.
We eventually arrived at the riverside.
Each participant on the excusrion was given a ticket (way back before our break in case anyone wanted to return on
their own schedule) to take the all-electric Duoro River Ferry (aka water taxi) across the river to the other side.
After disembarking from the boat, we had a rather short walk to the ship.
We dropped our items off in the cabin, freshened up a little, and headed to lunch.
We sat with Judy and Gary.
This was the first meal I didn't get a picture of the menu for some reason. I also didn't get a picture
of our entreé either. Maybe it was the pending departure that had me distracted...
Linda had a salad, an entreé (not pictured), and blueberry tart.
I had a soup, fish and chips (taken from an adjacent table), and ice cream.
There was about an hour of free time between the end of lunch and our departure for our next excursion
Historic Guimarães.
We started on the bus and had a less than an hour drive to the town.
According to this picture, the town is full of Dallas Cowboy fans.
The bus dropped us off at the top of a hill near the castle ruins. We walked by the ruins (they weren't open
for tours) and down the slope to the palace - that has 39 chimneys.
After hearing about the history of the palace, we continued walking on and passing our 6th pilgrimage marker.
Our stroll took us to busier part of town, with a number of restaurants with outdoor seating.
We walked through a passway to a plaza with a church, more outdoor seating, and shops.
We were given some free time - about a half hour - to have some coffee, and or do some shopping, and or
just to relax. We enetered a couple stores in search of an article of clothing for a gift, only to ultimately
find out that Portugal doesn't really have a textile industry and they import their wears.
We headed back to the plaza and it wasn't much longer before we all gathered and headed out again.
When we entered this plaza, we - let's just say - came from the left (from the perspective inside the plaza)
but on the way out, We walked to the right down a residential street.
At the far end of the street we wound up entering a small café. We sat around the perimeter of the open
space all the way in the back, and had three samples of pastries with a glass of wine. Two of the pastries -
pastel de nada - were essentially the same, though one was made with sweet potato; and a third.
We too a route back through the plaza, out the other side, and onward to the waiting bus. Well... we'd be waiting
for the bus - not long, though.
We got back on the bus to return to the ship. During our return, it started getting dark - plus it was overcast,
which didn't help either.
After returning to the ship, shedding our excursion items, and freshening up, we headed to the lounge.
Tonight we weren't going to have a port talk because rather than head out on an excursion in the morning, we
were heading out to our extension. And we had the Farewell toast instead, that included the statistics of the
trip such as how many liters of wine were drunk, how many pints of beer were drunk, and how many plates of
food were served.
The we proceeded to the dining room for our last dinner, and sat with Sharon and Bernie from PA, as Gary
and Judy had to get up REAL early in the morning and skipped dinner.
Also, we got a selfie with Aman, our server for our entire time on the ship.
Our very last menu on this trip.
Linda had cauliflower parmesan cream soup, sautéed Chinese egg noodles, and ice cream.
I had melão com presunto, herb marinated loin of lamb, and toucinho do céu and crème brüe
(since I only had it one other time on the entire trip).
We had the printout of which passengers leave when. We were heading out at 8:45 in the morning, and our luggage
had to be out at 7:45 - so it was actually later than our typical morning start time, so we didn't really have
to adjust our schedule much and went to sleep at our normal time.