Picturesque Porto
Wow, what a city! It is right out of a postcard - so beautiful. The city centre is located on a hill overlooking the Rio Douro River, which is off the Atlantic ocean. This city is full of coloured buildings on the hillside overlooking the river with trams along the ocean. It is a must see location.
Turns out that Porto (and all of Portugal) in the past four to five years has increased its tourism exponentially. Porto won the European Best Destination award in 2012, 2014 and 2017. It is booming right now.


We rented a car (this was an adventure in its self) and drove it from theAlgarves to Porto. The car was manual transmission and boy was it entertaining for both of us trying to drive it. There were some good laughs when we stalled it in the middle of traffic circles, hit curbs and the l ist goes on. According to Google Map it was going to take us 4 hours and 33 minutes to get to Porto, it took us over 6 hours. Too many, this might sound terrible but for us to make it in 6 hours is a miracle. Jada as a baby was horrible in the car and to be honest, she still is, however, we now have a very special gadget called an IPAD - it is a life saver. Cruz, like his sister, is horrible as well. I am talking crying so hard in cars where foam comes out of his mouth and his head and back are drenched in sweat from crying so hard.

Given that we only had 3 full days in Porto, we jam-packed it with of course eating at the best restaurants and walking the streets. We tried some Port as its a must when you're in Porto. I spiced mine up by having a Port Mojito and it was divine. Turns out, locals really only drink port wine a few times a year on special occasions. This city was full of friendly people, I know I say this a lot but Porto topped off all cities. Not to mention most everyone spoke English here. We learned that the reason the Portugees speak such good English is that they watched TV all there lives with subtitl

One evening we went across the river to Gaia where we were told you can get the best seafood. It was starting to get dark out and there was no one on the streets. We were getting a bit nervous but ended up stumbling across a very run down restaurant. We ordered up some tiger prawn, grilled octopus and salmon. They served it right off the grill from the streets with a side of french fries adding no form of food presentation on the plate. Turns out, it was so delicious. Ghetto - yes, but worth the adventure.
Chris is always very skeptical that everyone is trying to pickpocket him. One day when he ran out to grab some things, he came home in a frank saying that two separate times guys tried to pickpocket him and corner him. I, of course, had a feeling this was in his head. Then one night while we were driving the tiny streets in the dark, a cracked out guy was standing on the sidewalk and Chris and the guy stared each other down. I told Chris to get going fast back to our place. This cracked out guy started running after our car with the kids in it. I was freaking out. Luckily we lost him and are still around to tell the story.

Overall we had such a good time in Porto, Portugal and highly recommend it!
Love the Joneses
XOXO
XOXO
Posted on December 19, 2018 by admin in tagged
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