Up and after a light breakfast we headed straight to the Porto Sao Bento railway station to have a closer look at the tiled walls, just amazing workmanship.
We then decided to walk ( in the heat again) to the Crystal Palace gardens to have a look at the gardens and the views over the river. When we got there just after 11am and because there was a book show on , the gardens weren't open till midday. We had a walk elsewhere for a while before returning at 12 to look at the gardens and views, which were impressive.
It was then a further walk back towards the Se de Porto (Porto Cathedral) which was commenced in the Twelfth Century, improved in the gothic period and was an opulent Romanesque display of the Catholic churches riches. Very impressive indeed.
It was now after 2pm so we found a little bar not far from the Ponte Louis 1 ironwork Bridge and had a cheese platter with a local craft beer and a Virgin Mary to keep in the Catholic spirit. It started to pelt down so we made our way back to the hotel where Jane had a nap while I took the washing to the MerlinWash laundry, hopefully the last of the trip. We travel light ( 12 & 14 kg respectively hence the need for laundry every so often over the 6-7 weeks away. It was about 1km away but it had stopped raining and the guy at reception said it was good. Put on the washing then went for a walk and a cup of decent coffee for the hour it took before returning to do the dryer and head back to the hotel.
We headed out again around 5pm and as it wasn't raining returned to the bridge to walk across and back. A magnificent iron bridge built in 1910 and still going strong with trams and pedestrians.
Lovely views but was cold and windy so we returned to our local area for a little wander, passing a MerlinWash laundromat not 50m from our hotel we had walked past before and totally missed; idiots 😂. Found what looked a nice restaurant ' Bubbles and Tapas' and stopped for a meal. Jane had bubbles while I had a beer and white wine while once again cod for Jane while I had chicken tacos. Finished with a shared chocolate cake with soft chocolate centre and icecream for dessert before heading back to the hotel to finish with a glass of local red and a tawny port. Another great day in spite of the weather.
Checked us both in for tomorrows flight to Oslo via Lisbon, alarm set for 6.45am so all for a good nights sleep.
Why south to Lisbon to then fly north to Oslo I hear you saying. Thanks to the travel agent that booked our initial flights and me being a bit preoccupied when told we were returning via Bergen and Amsterdam, we had to book flights to Norway. However, originally I booked with a Norwegian airline for Porto to Oslo but this went belly up before we left (luckily lost no money) . It was then trying to get from Glasgow to Porto , train to Lisbon and the fly Oslo. As usual flights / dates etc didn't work out so in the end was easier to fly Glasgow to Lisbon, train Porto then fly Porto to Oslo via Lisbon. In the end worked out well as only a 35 minute flight between the two Portuguese cities and maximised our time in the three cities. See; always method to what appears to be madness😇
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