Corusca

Palace of dukes…

Heading to Porto…

The last day of out short visit to Porto had arrived. This post is mostly about shopping in the city. Beware! ;)

It was the shopping day, but we passed by the Bolhão Market, and it was open, so what better way to complement our shopping, than go to the main city’s market? I hadn’t gone there in years, not remembering it very well, and thought I’d find it very different after some work I believe had been done there a few years back. But it’s not very different from what little I remembered, being perhaps a bit emptier.

They still had live birds on sale there. The hens and stuff I did expect, but they also sold pidgeons. Do we really need more of those rats with wings in Portugal? I don’t think so.

There was also a big variety of flowers being sold there, and I felt tempted to buy a few, but we had several trips ahead of us, including a really long one, so I gave up on the idea, having only gotten a bookmarker at Bolhão as a souvenier.

Onwards we went, to our shopping mission. I simply love shopping (and eating) in Porto, even today, where a lot of the stores closed, it’s still more relaxing to shop there than in Lisbon, in my opinion. Not only that, but we find lots more bargains there than here in the Lisbon area, and there’s more variety and originality in the items we can find there. Between this trip and the last one a couple of weeks ago, I got new boots which I desperately needed because of the cold. A new jacket, that here in Lisbon I couldn’t find in a similar model for my size.

In Lisbon, Large is now what used to be Medium for reasons that go beyond me, and there’s never an XXL that fits, when my size is still an M, in my old clothes’ measures and, lucky me, Porto’s measures also.

So, yay, Porto, I love you long time! \o/

Anyway, shopping. We got a new blanket for out house in a colour that matches our room’s colour, to replace the two bordeaux blankets we used there instead of the place where they match the rest of the decoration – the living/dining room. I also could not resist buying a brand new PC Jade Empire Special Edition for 5 euros (squeeee!), because yes, I am quite the BioWare fangirl. Even when this time I may try the game out using one of our XBox’s joypads (they work in windows, right? USB and all… let’s hope so) to see if that makes the experience better than I remember when I tried out Jade Empire on the PC.

Later that day I bought a few of books at a book fair in the Campanhã train station, also quite cheap

Long story short, in just one day, and with less than 50 euros, we got a cool new blanket, a LOT of nicely designed underwear (like 8 pieces), Jade Empire Special Edition, three books, and we still managed to grab a bite to eat of an extremely yummy Berlin Ball (with cream ,as they should always be), an apple cake, and a latte. Neat, huh?

We went home in the afternoon, spending time with my grandma, and then at the end of the day we left, had a Francesinhas dinner near the train station, and headed back toward Lisbon.

With still much to see in Porto, I hope we get to go there again, sometime in the near future.

After a nicely spent first day in Porto, we went to visit other parts of the city in our second day. Our plan was to walk across the D. Luís I bridge, but I was afraid that it would be too rainy and windy, and that we’d have to cancel.

Turns out that it rained a lot but the wind wasn’t too strong, so we decided to cross it on foot instead of using the Metro to go back where we’d come from. The walk is not a long one – the bridge is less than 400 meters long – and nicely feasible by foot. You can cross both the lower and the top part on foot, the top part being the coolest, due to the beautiful view, and (lucky us) the Metro crossed the top part, so we ended up in the Morro Garden station, and went from there.

From atop the D. Luís I bridge you can see, better or worst, four of the other bridges that cross the Douro river in the city of Porto. I’m only sad that my low light photos always suck (and this time I decided to just take the iPhone instead of my camera since there’s little difference in the low light photos I knew I’d be taking due to all the clouds), and I didn’t capture the beauty of the view.

Having crossed the bridge, and taken a lot of photos, we looked for a way to get to the Guidais Elevator, which was aaaall the way down, on the river’s level. I found a way to some stairs that never ended, and we had a glimpse of Porto’s past while going down. It’s an old part of the city, and I liked the atmosphere even in the rain (maybe especially in the rain). I have to go back there some time and, with better light (or a better camera – I might need to borrow João’s), capture pictures I can only hope will portray part of the feeling I had while walking down the seemingly neverending stairs.

We finally reached ground level, and got the elevator. Sadly, since it was pretty cold, we couldn’t see almost anything through the windows, and we will need to go there again, when the time is warmer so we properly enjoy the view while going up from the Ribeira area to Batalha, or the other way around, since this time we didn’t visit the rivery area of Porto, which is also a must for tourists.

We then walked to the not far away train station of São Bento. An old station with a more classical look. By then it was pretty late, so after João took some photos of the closeby streets’ illuminations (and I failed when trying to do the same with my iPhone :P ), we went back home. Only one day left, would it also rain?

Recently my life has been eventful to say the least. A couple of weeks ago my grandfather passed away and I’ve since made two trips to Porto – one to go to his funeral, and another, this past weekend and Monday, to visit my now widowed grandmother.

João (who’s never actually visited Porto) and I took off the Oriente train station in Lisbon in Saturday morning, having gotten to Porto in the early afternoon. By the way, I’m well aware that in english it’s supposed to be Oporto, but screw that since if you can write Porto as a wine name, you sure as hell can use it for the city’s name. :P

We took care of our public transportation tickets for the three days we were there (the ‘Andantes’), purchased our return tickets to Lisbon, and went to have lunch with my grandmother at her house.

The first afternoon, we went to visit the Clérigos tower and church. The top of the tower has a wonderful view over the city, and it’s river, Douro. It was worth the effort of climbing up all those stairs. After the visit to Clérigos, we passed by the famous bookstore Livraria Lello & Irmão, considered one of the most beautiful of the world. Sadly, since it became so popular in later years, it was very crowded and we didn’t stay there for long.

We passed by the Aliados avenue during out trips in the area, but this was one of the few parts of Porto that João knew already (from a previous stop we made there a few years ago, while heading toward Gerês), so we didn’t stay there long and decided to go have our afternoon snack, at the most popular and one of the oldest cafés in Porto – Majestic. The hot chocolate there was very good as were the miniature pasteries we asked for.

We browsed some shop windows and then decided to go home for a wonderful dinner with my grandmother. The first day was over.

In the last few days, Corusca has been a photoblog.

I haven’t been feeling very talkative, and even as I write, I’m making an effort to complete this (very short, I imagine) post.

Last weekend we went to Santa Clara a Velha, in Alentejo – Portugal, and spent our time near a huge lake, where mist hovered about in the early morning and where, despite the clouds, the sunsets were beautiful. We also went to Silves, and visited the castle which is nicer than I remembered, and if memory serves me, has more stuff to check out inside than it did six years ago.

Between our drives and walks on the nearby hills and villages, I caught up on my reading, which at the time consisted of ‘The Strain‘. Cool book with vampires (the non-Twilight sissy type), which was devoured in about eight days. A record for me in terms of reading speed, ever since I finished college. I am now reading Haruki Murakami’s ‘A Wild Sheep Chase‘, at a slower pace. Nice so far, and almost as puzzling as the previous novel I’d read from him, ‘Sputnik Sweetheart‘.

I’ve been busy at work, and at home I haven’t really payed attention to the Internet beyond the occasional IM. I’ve been reading more, and catching up with TV shows instead and I haven’t regretting it. I can’t be sure but I might only really go back to using the PC for something other than IMing and stuff when I get my hands on Dragon Age: Origins.

I’ll post some more photos of my short trip here soon.