Pouring in Porto
I will never complain about London rain again.
Our hostel was an interesting one. The clerk was a tiny little Portuguese gentleman who didn't speak a word of English so we communicated mainly via pantomining and Google translate back and forth. Despite the 'no smoking' signs everywhere the place smelt of smoke smothered in incense to cover up the smoke and the shower had two settings: Mordor or Hoth.
Our first rainy day in Porto we went on a free walking tour with a guide named Pedro (not the King Pedro IV, he made sure to clarify). And foretelling the day, he came stocked with umbrellas for the unsuspecting tourists. The postcards lie. I found one that was photoshopped to have a blue sky, with the un-photoshopped version right beside it. Beautiful city, maybe just not in January next time.
Now normally a bit of rain is manageable, however at this point in our travels my boots were not fairing terribly well. Essentially, the soles of my boots were peeling off, and I was incon-sole-able. I did the best I could, expertly wrapping my feet in rolls of duct tape like a nurse with a tensor bandage, but they certainly were not boot-iful. And since what we found wasn't real duct tape, about half way through the day it would get soggy, slide off and I'd surrender to wet feet. It was so catastrophically ridiculous it was impossible not to see the humour in it. And as a side note, I couldn't just buy new shoes (or shoe-vinirs) because no one in Portugal makes size 42 shoes.
I'm convinced Portuguese people are at least semi-amphibious, have webbed feet and can sense when it's going to rain harder. The progression of Porto rain are: mist, which you barley notice unless you're wearing glasses, then a bit heavier rain, typical English rain where maybe you put your hood up, then someone tips a bucket over your head and it gushes. Repeat every 20 minutes. And always right before the torrent, all the residents instinctively get their umbrellas out, once the last one clicks open the flood rains down. Most of these photos are actually from other days because I didn't dare get my camera out.
We walked around the city, trying to see the sights through the veil of rain. We saw the bridges and the city across the river, Duoro, from the old city walls, which since they were never attacked were mainly dismantled. At one point Duoro and Porto were part of the same Roman settlement, called 'Beautiful Harbour' so when it split they split the name. A majority of the buildings have a beautiful facade made of bright, colourful tiles because they survive the humidity, while other constructions crumbling. Steve and I went for lunch with a few other people from the tour, Caroline and Luke, and had the traditional Francizina sandwich. This beautiful monstrosity is a layered meat sandwich covered in a coat of melted cheese with an egg on top - not for vegetarians.
We rejoined Pedro for the second round of the tour and saw the other half of the city. One of my favourite stops were a pair of churches, Carmo and Carmelitas, right near the university. The story is that there were two priest who worked at one church, they had a falling out with and so out of spite one priest decided to build an even grander church right beside the first one. But because two Catholic churches cannot share a wall he built his house, 1.3m wide, to connect the two. The dedication of that grudge impresses me. Spending years building the church, and then resigning yourself to live in a house a bit over a meter wide, just because you had an argument with your boss.
There was an evening port cellar tour, but for the same price, you can get a few bottles at the supermarket and figure it out for yourself. We learned a bit of it's history on the normal tour. Basically during the Portuguese expeditions from Porto a drunk Port-er accidentally added a double port-ion of alcohol to the concentrated wine, which tasted awesome and became an im-port-ant part of Portuguese identity and fame. So we bought a bottle and headed back to the hostel.