Porto, Portugal

Location 5: Porto,Portugal

Since Salamanca is right next to Portugal, I had to go see what's over there! I took a bus to Porto (Oporto in Portuguese) with my friend. We took a 2.30am bus and it takes approximately 5 hours to reach Porto. The bus company we took was ALSA. It was alright..but it was terribly noisy, there were a bunch of loud teens in the bus making up a ruckus. There was about ~6 American girls who got up the bus and the bus was already filled up, so they could not sit together (My friend and I split up too), then one girl got visibly upset because of the boys. She started to panic and even before the bus left, she was saying, "I'm sorry but I want to get out of the bus, I have a bad feeling" and other lines similar to wanting to bolt. And her friends were like "it's okay, we'll be fine", then one girl said Let's Pray, then she counted 1,2,3..then I guess she prayed..then they were texting their friends who was in Salamanca and passing messages. I was in the middle of all this muddle..and I was facing a dilemma.."Am I supposed to be Scared??" "Why am I not panicking?" I was really puzzled, but chose ignorance over paranoia..thank God I did so (no I did not count to 3 before praying). The boys were mainly seated at the back end, and I was sitting at the middle of the bus.. and they was one dude who was constantly yawning..and he yawned so LOUDLY.. I really wanted to throw something at him to make him shut up..cuz you're so drowsy and trying to get some sleep before we reach there, and there he was, yawning at odd moments..interrupting my sleep!!!

We reached Porto at 7.30am, since there's a diff of 1 hour between Portugal and Spain, it was actually 6.30am. And it was freaking cold and misty! Obtained a map at the bus station and started our journey. We walked with a man as he wanted to go to the train station. He was a very interesting guy..Was from Slovenia if i'm not mistaken, but lived in Spain for a substantial amount of years..and he wanted to visit the beach in Portugal. We walked with him till we reached the Renfe. Said our goodbyes and we started exploring. Porto seemed quiet and it was reeking of urine.. The parked looked run down and was littered. Since it was a Saturday morning..maybe the effects of Friday night partying was still evident.

University of Porto

Tower of the Clérigos Church on a misty morn

There seemed to be a lot of churches here, and my were they beautiful..it was amazing as some had tiled walls..gorgeous!

Church of the Carmelites

Igreja dos Carmelitas..It was so big I could not capture the whole church in one shot. The side is tiled and they were amazing. I felt so small standing next to it!There was paintings the tiled-wall. Gorgeous. I noticed there were a few buildings that had tiled walls..pretty! It is a Baroque Style Church and it was built in the 17th Century. Just read online that the tiles actually show the founding of the Carmelite order! Interesting.

Tiled wall of The Church of the Carmelites

I'm sorry I forgot what this was..was some kinda square..

Lello Bookshop

Just found out that this is actually a bookshop!! And it's supposed to have really cool stairs inside..too bad it was like 7am when we reached there. I took the pic cuz I thought the house was really cute! Now I know there's more to it! Dumb, I just saw the Heritage signboard next to it now >.<

We walked aimlessly a bit..We could hear seagulls all over..and my were they LOUD! walked till we reached narrow roads of housing areas. We wanted to get to the bridges and we just played by guess that whichever roads we took, it'd all reach the river! It sure did..after walking/running through the stinky roads..we reached Douro river!

Ponte D. Luis (Bridge)

Alminhas de Ponte

This bronze plate was set up in memory of those who lost their lives when the bridge collapsed while people were fleeing the French troops.

Port Wine

Suspension bridge that never made it save the 2 pillars

These 2 pillars are situated right next to Ponte Luis 1 (Bridge).

Crossed over and had a small hike up to get to the top of the bridge. It was worth it..after stuffing myself with helados (ice-cream) back in Salamanca..my motivation was lose that 2kgs(weighed at the bus station and i gained 2kgs after losing 3!!)..keep running up the steep roads! lol

The run was WORTH IT:

Top of Ponte Luis 1

Metro crossing over the bridge. Very cool

Basically there's 2 levels of the bridge: Lower level and upper level. The lower level caters to vehicles and pedestrians. The higher level is for the metro as well as for pedestrians. It was very windy and I lost my hair-tie (probably whilst running up the roads) thus resulting in a very wind-swept, bad hair day for me >.<

Roman aquaduct?

We crossed back to the other side..the thing about Porto is that there's so many layers! Porto looks like a hill actually..so there's steep moments. We, rather I visited the Porto Cathedral (Se) (my friend decided to take a nap outside).

Side view

Inside

(SQUINT)The backgorund: The Cathedral on the left, "Paço Episcopal", a 15th century Gothic style construction on the right. Foreground: A pillar on the Cathedral square.

São Bento train station

The train station had gorgeous tiled walls!!

This is how you make road in Portugal..Check out the chico's rear! lol

There were major road constructions going on in the busy city streets and what was worse was..it was SALES season..there were tonnes of people squishing their ways about.

We walked more about the downtown of Porto to Aliados Avenue . Great thing is that it no longer smelled of urine, and the buildings were impressive. I don't think I saw their Stock exchange building, but it's supposed to be impressive.

Statues holding up the building

City Hall - Has a turquoise dome on top

City Hall

Prison

This is the Cadeia da Relação (Court of Appeal Gaol). There was actually an art exhibition held in this old prison. It was the opening ceremony when I went..man they were long winded! So We decided to skip this and visit other spots.

We visited the 'Crystal Palace' next. I was expecting a palace with well, crystal walls. Oops.. It's more of a sports centre and there's a beautiful small park around it that give a wonderful view of Porto.

Palácio de Cristal

Don't miss the view..Ponte de Arrabida (Bridge's name)

There's a park that has 4 statues that represents the 4 seasons..I thought it was very nice.

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Relaxing spot

Welcome to Miami..lol


The Romantic Museum..it just closed as we reached!! Arrghh

Monument of the Heroes of the Peninsular War

This monument stands in the middle of Praça Mouzinho de Albuquerque’s Gardens. It's not clear here cuz of the sun setting. On the top is actually a lion crushing an eagle. Read more about it online, it's a monument to remember the brave men who fought in the Peninsular war against the French. The lion actually presents the Portuguese and the eagle represents Napolean's Empire.

Finally..this is really cool..it's the Casa da Musica (House of Music). This place was built in 2005 for concerts, musicals and what not. It was built by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. It's situated near the monument at the Rotunda da Boavista (Boavista roundabout). The coolest bit is the shape of the building itself. It's shaped of a polygon.

Part of the building

Entrance

The public get to mix their own music and share it here. All Macs baby

Practice is in session..

Although we just spent a day in Porto, I think we covered a lot..we only did not get sot go to the beach. I was dead tired towards the end of the day. On the way back, we got to see the Atlantic Ocean..COOLNESS..then I fell asleep al lhte way through.


Would love to check out Lisboa next time. The people here were very nice..Those who couldn't speak English, communicated to us in Spanish/Portuguese..I kinda caught the main point and we didn't lose our way.