Portugal Trip April 2024. Part 2: 4 Days in Porto

Porto Day 1. April 8, 2024

We’re heading to Porto today! But before we get our rental car, we still have a chance to enjoy one last Lumi Rooftop breakfast. I decided to shake it up a bit this morning and got a fried egg instead scrambled…crazy I know! And speaking of one last time, of course I had to get one last OOTD shot in my favourite stairwell!

We grabbed a taxi to the airport around 11:30 AM, which is where we are picking up the rental car. It was a little confusing because our taxi driver dropped us off at the car rental drop off, and we found out that it isn’t the same place where you pick up rental cars. We had to find our way over to the arrivals terminal and that’s where the rental car kiosks are for pick up. Small detour and the line ups were crazy long. Took about an hour to get our car sorted, but no worries, we were out on the road and heading north to Porto in no time.

We decided to break up the 3 hour drive to Porto and make a late lunch stop in Nazare. When we arrived in Nazare the skies had turned a dark gray and the wind had really picked up. We walked to the main beach area, and it was now blowing hard, so nobody was even on the beach at this point. We kind of thought, why waste any time here if a storm is coming in, let’s just grab a sandwich at the grocery store and keep driving. So while Stephen was ordering our sandwiches at the grocery store deli counter, I went to use the washroom. You guysssss!!!!! I am permanently SCARRED from this experience. The bathroom stall was the most disgusting and disturbing thing I have ever witnessed. I’ll leave it at that. Needless to say I left gagging, and no longer with any appetite. Get me the F out of here!!!!

Nazare beach. I’m smiling here so you can definitely tell it’s just before the unspeakable bathroom experience

SO let’s forget all that and skip right to Porto. Driving was easy and pretty straightforward. Portugal does have a lot of roundabouts, but so does PEI! Our hotel in Porto is Condes de Azevedo Palace and had free parking so that was a great perk! It was about 5pm when we arrived to our hotel for check in, and the staff here, just like at Lumaires, are super friendly and helpful. This hotel was also originally a palace in the 17th century and now completely renovated into beautiful apartment style rooms. Our room had a large living room with doors that led out into a beautiful shared garden, a full kitchen complete with a washing machine, a loft master bedroom and 2 full bathrooms.

We unpacked and settled in while sipping on our complimentary glasses of Port. And then went for a quick walk about before our dinner reservation. We walked to the Porto Cathedral which was just one block down from our hotel and checked out all the city views from the look out points.

The front desk staff booked our dinner reservations for tonight at Restaurante Escondidinho. On our way there we passed by the beautiful Church of Saint Ildefonso. I am just obsessed with the Portuguese blue tiles! LOVE IT!

Restaurante Escondidinho is an old school Porto restaurant, it’s been around since 1927. It’s steeped in tradition. For starters we ordered bread and olives and an order of codfish cakes. Side rant: I grew up with eating salt cod. My mom made salt cod fish cakes a lot when we were kids. I’m not a salt cod hater. But I can not understand how Portuguese people like their salt cod fish cakes plain. I need a sauce! Give me some mustard pickles, give me some chow-chow, heck I’ll even take some ketchup…anything. I can’t hack down a salt cod fish cake plain. It needs a zippy sauce or condiment please! (Spoiler alert: I have not quite learned my salt cod tolerance/intolerence level yet, but that is met in a few days time).

For our mains we ordered Entrecôte Laminado. We really struggled with this translation. Our server tried to explain what cut of beef it was, google translate was failing us, and we just decided what the heck let’s try it. Overall the meal was good. But not outstanding

Porto Day 2. April 9, 2024

Our first full day in Porto and I’m so excited because I booked a food and wine tour this morning with Taste of Porto. But before we head to the meeting point for the tour, we went to see the Cappella Das Almas (Chapel of Souls) which is one of the famous churches with the most goregous blue tiles!

For the Taste Of Porto small group food and wine tour we met at 10 AM in front of the Mercado do Bolhão. This market dates back to the 1800’s, but was recently renovated and I have to say it is a beautiful, clean and spacious market that feels authentically local. Our guide was fantastic and we had a small group of 10 people and they were all a ton of fun! (sometimes a group can be a bit of a disaster, but we were super lucky on this one!) The first half of the tour takes place completely in and around the market.

So after a brief intro to the market we head over to the wine seller, and we each get a glass of white wine. Our guide tells us a bit about the variety and region of the wine, then we wander over to the cheese monger and get our local cheese samples to pair with the wine.

Then we go back to the wine seller for our second glass of wine, and this time it’s a red. Then we head to the meat seller and get our samples of charcuterie meats to pair with our wine.

We also go to a produce vendor and get a delicious locally grown fruit cup. And then we head to the coffee vendor so some kick you in the butt strong black espresso and a fluffy slice of Portuguese sponge cake (pao de lo) which was a perfect pairing with the coffee

Next on the tour, we leave the market and do a bit of a guided city walking tour until we get to our next location which is Flor dos Congregados Casa De Pasto. This restaurant is a must see, for the history alone. It’s been in operation since 1852!!!! And as the sign on the door says, it is all about Slow Food. We had a glass of surprisingly good sparkling RED wine paired with the Terylene sandwich. This sandwich is a labour of love. It’s a double decked sandwich with roasted pork loin and smoked ham, and takes over 24 hours to prepare! The pork is marinated in a wine, garlic onions, tomatoes, rosemary oregano, chilli peppers and some secret something something for over 20 hours. Then it is roasted in an onsite wood oven for over 3 hours! It’s then served on a crusty homemade bun with the pork loin and smoked ham. Definitely a must try in Porto!

After this stop we did a little bit more walking around the city and then we had our last and final stop at Popina. This has a nice, cozy and friendly atmosphere. We had more wine (!!) and salt cod fritters and a rice dish. We were pretty stuffed at this point and could barely force ourselves to eat another bite.

We were supposed to do a port wine tasting later this afternoon but I had a feeling that it might be too much to do in one day and I’m glad I decided to cancel it last night. So instead we decided we needed some walking to help work off our food coma!!! We saw so much of the city in one afternoon! Here’s what we did: Igreja do Carmo (another blue tiled church!) Clerigos Tower, Majestic Cafe, and we also walked all along the Porto side of the waterfront and then huffed it up ALLLLL the steps back up to our hotel to get ready for dinner.

For dinner tonight we went to Culto ao Bacalhau which is located on the top floor of the Mercado do Bolhão. It’s a lovely spot with a cool ambiance. Lot’s of locals dining here. The service was great and friendly. But … It is here where we officially hit the salt cod wall of no return. I didn’t fully grasp the concept of this restaurant until we were sitting down and staring at the menu. This is a specialty restaurant. For Salt Cod. Literally every single dish, including the desserts, had salt cod in it. EVERYTHING!!! (I want to say it was our understanding that everything had salt cod in it…maybe I’m wrong…but that was our understanding of the menu). Safe to say, we did not get a stamp from the finish your plate club tonight. Not even close. And I have no idea why but I feel so guilty when I can’t finish a dish. I will practically make my self ill, and over eat because of this weird guilt thing I have. But I just could not stomach it tonight. No more salt cod! Not even one more bite! And I honestly don’t want to dump on this restaurant. If you love salt cod, you will absolutely love this restaurant!

This is his I can’t have one more bite of salt cod look

Porto Day 3, April 10 2024

It’s a lovely sunny day and after drinking what seemed like gallons of water last night to rehydrate from the salt cod debacle, we’re ready to take on the day! Today is just a free day to wander and explore and see where we end up. We found some cool, little side streets, and part of the Camino Trail.

Then we headed to the Statue of Infante D. Henrique, Palacio da Bolsa and then we took a tour of the Church of Saint Frances.

After our church tour we ended up back on the Porto waterfront, did some more exploring of the area and then we went back to our hotel to get some advice on where to go for the best francesinhas.

Our hotel concierge told us we should head to Cafe Santiago. This spot has been family since the 1970’s and claims their special sauce is a closely guarded secret family recipe. It was pretty busy there so we gave them our name and waited outside for about 20 minutes until they had a table for us. We each ordered half a Francesinha french fries and a coke (a cold beer would have went just as good too). For any of you who might not have heard of this dish (I will not make the mistake of calling it a sandwich ever again! I was corrected by locals!!!) The Francesinha Santiago consists of white bread, Bologna, sausage, red sausage, beef steak, ham, cheese, fried egg, the special sauce, and of course fries on the side. It’s a hefty meal!

For the rest of the afternoon, we decided to go over the bridge and explore Gaia. We strolled along the waterfront, looking at all the port houses. And of course we had to stop in and check out the massive Sardine Shop!

The only place in Gaia that I really wanted to see was the rabbit mural which totally did not disappoint!

On the way back to Porto we went through the Jardim do Morro, tons of young folks lounging around in the sun and buskers playing . And then continued across over the pedestrian bridge and back to the hotel.

On the way to dinner tonight we went through the beautiful Sao Bento train station, check out the tiled murals!

Tonights dinner is at Tapabento, which is kind of in the train station. One side of the restaurant looks out into the train station, which is kind of cool. This was hands down my favourite restaurant experience in Porto.

For Starters we ordered Tomato Bruschetta, and Steamed Oxtail Dumplings. Both delish! And for mains we ordered Duck Magret and Wild Shrimp Sautéed in Garlic with and order of bread on the side for dipping up the sauce.

And dessert was insanely delicious – the Peanut foam! OMGGGGG Ice cream, toffee, crispy peanut and cocoa sand! If you come here you need to get this!

Porto/Douro Valley Day 4. April 11, 2024

We’ve got a big day ahead of us today! We booked a day long small group wine and boat tour of the Douro Valley. We booked it through Get Your Guide and the actual tour is called Savour the Wine of the Douro Valley with Lunch. We were picked up at our hotel by our guide and driver at 8:30 in the morning. Then we drove to a small little village where we got to do a little walk about and explore.

The Douro Valley is off the charts gorgeous! The landscape is spectacular!

Then we carried on to our first winery which was Quinta Do Val Moreira where we toured the estate and then had a port tasting. I discovered that without a doubt, I really dislike port. Which is a pity considering where I am. And lucky for Stephen, he discovered he loves port, so along with his tastings of port, I gave him all of mine too!

After our port tasting we we escorted over to where we were having lunch on the estate. We had some lovely red and white wine at the table. Lunch was fine. Nothing overly special. Our starter was Caldo Verde which is a kale soup. It was ok. Our main dish was a pork and potato dish with some sort of cooked green as a side (spinach or kale maybe). And for dessert we had an apple pastry and ice cream sort of dish.

After lunch we drove to Pinhao for our boat tour of the Douro Valley. The boat tour was not private to our group, there were lots of other people on the boat as well. The boat trip was stunning and I loved every second of it! Very happy that we were able to get out on the river and see the countryside from the river viewpoint.

Moving on from Pinhao, we stopped at a scenic viewpoint for some photos

And then we continued on to our final vineyard, Quinta do Beijo, for the last wine tasting of the day. The wines were decent. The winemaker was kind of funny/kind of sassy. He was trying to be funny but he mostly came across as a dick to be honest. One cool part of the tour was there was an empty wine barrel that he let guests climb into and take photos if they wanted. Stephen of course could not pass up on that opportunity!!!

When we got back to Porto we were pretty tired from our long day. We walked out onto the bridge to watch the sunset, which was very pretty.

And then for dinner tonight we decided to try Gazela, the original Cachorrinho that Anthony Bourdain loved. It’s an iconic, busy, nothing fancy, snack bar famous for it’s unique hot dogs and classic Portuguese sandwiches. Cachorrinho is a crispy bread filled with a flat sausage and melted cheese and a spicy butter sauce. Gazela’s has been in business for over 50 years and apparently serves over 300 of these a day!!! There was a long line up to get in, but the line moved fairly quickly. We eventually were seated inside. This place was HOPPING! Crazy busy and filled with locals and tourists alike. The table beside us was a big local family and the youngest kid ended up crawling under my chair for a nap!