Porto Day 24

April 23, 2010

Day 24 Porto

After a lovely sleep, it was time to start our adventure in Porto.  First thing to do was find an info booth to figure out what our adventure should include.  We found the info booth on a hilltop overlooking the city.  Though the day didn't start off warm, it was clear and you could see all the buildings around.  It was nice.  We decided to do some Port tastings that day, so we headed to the other side of the river.  The river was very pretty and the houses along the way were really neat.  A lot of them had beautiful tiling on the walls.  We headed to the other side of the river to have some lunch because most of the Port wineries were open after 14:00.  We found a bar with a great view of the river, had our lunch and went in search of the free entrance wineries.  The first one, right next to the bar, didn't seem to be open, so we went with our second choice.  We had to walk around some back streets and happened to stumble upon doors open to the back areas of one of the wineries.  The smell of wine was so strong!  We finally made it to our second choice, Croft.  They started up with a free sample of their Port Branco, a white wine aperitif, which was so delicious.  Unfortunately, the next tour in English was in 2 hours, so we said we'd be back and headed to another winery.  This one, called Taylor, Fladgate and Yeatman, was offering a tour right away, so we waited.  After waiting for 10 min, we finally started the tour which took us to see the barrels that the wine was held in and the vats.  The guy told us about why the climate was great there and some interesting info and then we went to the tasting.  This involved a white Port and a ruby Port.  The white wasn't as good as the other place, but the ruby was very tasty.  I knew as soon as I tried it that my dislike of red wine had ended (well, in a sense).  I had found my new drink of choice.  Especially when they kept mentioning how good it is with cheese and dark chocolate.  Who could resist?  We then headed back to Croft to get our tour.  We had a little bit of time to wait, so we decided to pay for a sample of Croft's Pink Port.  It was tasty.  Then off to the tour.  This time I actually learned the difference between wine and Port wine.  Turns out they stop fermentation and it makes the natural sugars stay in the wine, so it's sweet.  That's the way I like it!  We figured that they had already given us a free sample and remembered us, so we wouldn't get another, but it turns out at the end of the tour you get to try their 5 year old ruby vintage (I think).  Also very tasty.  After having our fill, and me purchasing a bottle (how could I resist at 7 euro a bottle?) we went down to the water.  We decided that we would buy some snacky foods and hang out by the water on the green grass.  They had a little grass mound that you could prop up against and watch the water action.  After buying some cheese from a little shop and some stuffed pastries we went back to the water and started our relaxing.  It was so nice.  The sun had come out at this point so it was extra lovely.  Once we had our fill and after a short nap we headed back to the other side of the water.  After the nap I was feeling groggy and didn't want to do anything anymore so we headed back to the hotel for the night.  At the hotel, I gave in to the meows below our window and fed the cats a little bit of cheese.  You should have seen the one growling.  Thankfully they didn't fight.  They were so adorable, I couldn't resist.  After a bit of reading and watching TV on Trevor's laptop, we headed to bed.