I stayed in a hostel (paid for 2 beds so I could have room to myself) and it was actually pretty nice for only being about $35. It was at the north end of the city center of Porto, near this building, city hall.
In the morning I went to their big market. It had things like chickens and guinea pigs: for your pet or your entree!
Guess what this fancy place is. McDonald's. It's where I had lunch. Apparently it's one of the fanciest McDonald's in Europe.
This is one of the main landmarks in Porto, the Clerigos Tower.
Here is the view from the top.
That's the Atlantic on the horizon.
Nice view toward the Douro River.
Here is a church that has a pretty azulejo facade. Azulejos are the tiles that are everywhere in Portugal.
I went to a really awesome bookstore called Lello. It was beautiful and had the most magnificent staircase.
The Se (Cathedral) of Porto.
The Se had a really pretty tiled cloister.
Another church I went to had a crypt. I do love the macabre so I had to see it. They used to throw the monks and stuff under the floorboards to rot after they died, and here are there leftover bones. Nice.
From a different trip, but showing that my love of the macabre has been going on for a while.
Then I went to Porto's Palacio da Bolsa, or Stock Exchange Palace. They don't do stock things there anymore because everything is in Lisbon but it has really beautiful interior rooms.
Then I went to the river front.
I took a cruise on the river, which has 6 bridges. Here are some pictures so you can feel like you were on the tour too.
Bridge 1. Designed by an associate of Eiffel.
View of Vila Nova de Gaia, where the Port wine caves are. It's one of the main attractions of Porto and I didn't even go. There are a bunch of places in Porto that offer free Port wine tasting, and I skipped out on all of them.
The kind of boat I was on was used originally to transport wine barrels down the river.
Bridge 2.
Bridge 3. Designed by Eiffel. Bridge 4 in the background.
Bridge 5 in the distance.
And finally, bridge 6. It seems unnecessary for there to be 6 bridges within 3 miles of each other, but they look nice.
Beautiful.
Then I went back toward my hostel. Porto, as most cities in Portugal, is very hilly. They call these things elevators, but they are mostly just trolleys on steep tracks. I pretended I was on a roller coaster.
Dinner was from a vending machine because I was tired. Part of my dinner was pig leg flavored potato chips from Spain. Not my fav.
Sunday I went to Coimbra. It looks a lot like Porto and Lisbon from the river. All three of these cities are steeply built up hills next to a river, so it can be difficult to tell them apart at first glance. Coimbra is most famous for having a really old university (established in 1290, permanently moved to its current location in 1537). Also it is the third largest city in Portugal.
My breakfast: Coimbra pastries mostly filled with egg mixed with sugar (not delicious) and white hot chocolate (very delicious).
This church, like most in Portugal is 1000 years old. I must have sat in 20 churches just during this weekend. I don't know how Europe possibly has so many fancy churches.
Another church. Very fancy. Some Portuguese kings buried in there. It has an organ with horizontal pipes in addition to the traditional vertical ones.
I like this little garden.
This is Biblioteca Joanina at the University of Coimbra. It is probably the most awesome library I have ever seen in my life. It has about 200,000 books which all pre-date 1755. It was gorgeous. Also the university houses a family of bats to eat the bugs which might otherwise eat the books.
In the basement of the library there was an "Academic Prison" for students who did bad things. Tiny rooms with no windows. Much like my carrel at law school.
And which privileged area of study gets to actually have their classes and things in this fancy old part of campus?
After seeing the University, I went to some Roman ruins. I was the only one in there, so it was like being in an ancient playground. I went stomping around and climbing up the same places as the Romans.
The old cathedral in Coimbra.
This street is called "break your back road" more or less. It used to have no stairs and was just one straight slippery cobblestoned disaster.
So anyway, back to Lisbon. yesterday I went to the largest aquarium in Europe. It was at the Park of Nations, which I talked about in my last post.
It had lots of cool fish and animals like...
Penguins
and otters
and seahorses. Did you know seahorses are the only species where the male gets pregnant? For real.
These were probably my favorite fish I saw there. They were so colorful.
Today I went to a design and fashion museum. All of the colors are little post-it notes of sorts. It had cool things like Versace dresses and interesting furniture.
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