It’s Sunday afternoon in Leixões. It’s warm but overcast. This is the port for Oporto, famous for its port wine, and the second largest city in Portugal. We had an uneventful sea day yesterday and last night we got back an hour so we’re now 5 hours ahead of EDT. I’ve been dragging a little the last couple of days. I have a cold. I have tested with my handy-dandy Chinese made covid tests and I am so far negative so I think it’s just an old-fashioned cold.
The last time I was here with my husband we took an all-day tour inland to a winery. I didn’t feel a need to do that again so I didn’t book anything which in retrospect might have been a mistake. The choices were going for a port tasting at 9:30 AM or a visit to a fado café, also early. Somehow those seemed like afternoon things to me. Instead I slept late and took the shuttle bus to town.
Oporto lies at the mouth of the Douro River. Archaeologists have found evidence of settlements in this area dating as early as the 8th century BC and some artifacts indicate there was a Phoenician settlement here. Just think of that – from the eastern Mediterranean to here on the Atlantic coast. When the Moors invaded the Iberian peninsula in 711 AD this area fell to them. For the next hundred fifty years the Moors controlled most of what are now Spain and Portugal and one can still see their influence in the architecture. In 868 AD a king of a little kingdom in northwestern Spain (Asturias) sent one of his vassals to reconquer this territory which he did and he established a settlement called Portus Cale. That later became Portugal, the name of the modern country. The Moors were expelled from here several hundred years before Ferdinand and Isabella managed to expel them from Spain.
By the early 18th century the British signed a treaty with the Portuguese for the production and export of wine from this region. The British enjoyed their port wine even back then. The British quickly dominated the wine business and the Portuguese Prime Minister, the Marquis de Pombale, decided to counter that. He established a firm that had the monopoly on wine from the Douro Valley and he tried to control the standards. The small winegrowers rebelled and burned down the firm’s buildings. It became known as the Revolta dos Borrachos, the revolt of the drunkards. I like that name!
Anyway, I took the shuttle into town. We drove along a long beach dotted with some impressive rocks. A few brave souls were in the water. Brrr! It has to be cold. The bus dropped us off at a square where there were lots of people; it is Sunday so the locals are out for Sunday strolls. There was an impressive church tower which someone informed me I could pay to climb to the top. I don’t think so. I couldn’t find an entrance to the church that was open so I gave up on that idea. There was a stand with a bunch of tuk-tuks and I thought I’d take a ride around the old city on one of those. That didn’t work out either because to get in the tuk-tuk there was about a three-foot-high step. The only way I could have made it in was if someone had given me a very large shove in the derrière and that seemed a little undignified. Instead I wandered a little and then waited for the next shuttle bus to take me home.
So this is a pretty boring post. I did learn that I’m truly not as young as I used to be and hopping in and out of things isn’t as easy as it once was. Oh, the bus driver that brought me into town had pepper and salt hair and he was listening to what sounded like German rap music first and then what sounded like the theme from the Marlboro Man cigarette commercials of days gone by. It was a really eclectic radio station and it seemed an odd choice for a man of his age.
Tomorrow I have a private tour booked for all day from L:isbon. Once again I’m going to take a trip down memory lane. I hope I won’t be disappointed. Sorry if I've bored you but that's the kind of day it was. Even the photos I took are kind of gray and dull but I'll upload a couple anyway.
This is the tower someone told me I could climb - in my dreams perhaps.
4 comments:
I don't think this was boring! It's interesting hearing about your adventures, and when you're in an exotic-enough place, even just looking around and contemplating things is an adventure. The history is neat, too. Hope you keep having fun!
Oh, one thing I wonder: how do Portuguese people pronounce the letter O with a tilde over it? (õ) I could just Google, of course, but you actually are there, so you have more of an authoritative ability to answer!
I can see why you and Katie had a good time traveling together— you both ask good questions and you are both curious. We have never been to Oporto but have wanted to go so it’s nice to hear about it and to see your photos. We are on a little road trip to Chuck’s doctor in Richmond and on to Chapel Hill to visit his sister. We are meeting the Jalovecs for lunch tomorrow as they now live nearby. Keep having fun!
I didn’t think it was boring either and I know what your talking about with hopping up in things, when my eldest son brings his truck and wants me to get in, I have to bring my folding step.
Ps I loved the photo of the harbor pilot getting of the ship.
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