08/31/19 - Saturday, Nice

The setup for the free breakfast at the hotel was a bit unusual. The hotel was somehow connected to the adjacent restaurant, which you accessed by going outside and into another entrance (as opposed to entering the restaurant via the hotel which happened to also have an entrance for the general public). It was an, um, interesting place. It was made to look even older than the building was, with roughened walls painted an ochre shade with some slats showing – I guess a shabby chic look? Other parts had a kind of kitschy wallpaper pattern that would’ve been popular in, say, the 40s or 50s. There were deer antlers on one wall, interesting artwork throughout, and a creepy male mannequin wearing a leopard print Speedo and with a gold chain around the waist from which hung gold letters spelling ROCKSTAR (in case you thought anyone else would be wearing such a thing).

Ye Olde Pen Shoppe

There were no servers in the restaurant when we entered. There was, however, a guy in the kitchen in the back who was clearly trying to prep for the regular restaurant hours (the restaurant was clearly not open to the public for breakfast or even coffee at this time). Inevitably, when hotel guests had questions, they sought that poor guy out who got more frustrated with each request as this was clearly not his job. Turns out it was the job of the hotel clerk who finally wandered in. She added a few more croissants to the basket (apparently, three was the perfect amount to set out at any given point in time). My wife asked if there were eggs as there was an electric egg boiling machine and, probably 15 minutes, she finally brought the eggs out. I don’t know if these machines are different in France, but this one took well over 15 minutes, though apparently the eggs were good. The coffee was less good – I think the packets of instant Nescafe up in the room were far better. But hey, a free breakfast is a free breakfast and the croissant and yogurt were at least enough to get me on my way.

Cheese so special it is roped off -- VIP cheese

 We did a bit of shopping that morning. No, not fancy things that one might associate with the high fashion of Paris or something. No, we hit places such as Zara and H&M so that we had a few more cheap t-shirts and things to wear in the hot weather. What’s interesting to me is that the stores have different merchandise in Europe than in the US so we ended up with some things that may be a bit unique. My favorite find was a bizarre white t-shirt with what looked like a frame around some artwork of a woman with a crazy red hairstyle which was then accented with the a few sequins of the same color.  Totally NOT my style, but hey, EUR 5!

I can't unsee this, er, "art"

Some of the interesting art

We went to the Musee d’Arts Modernes et d’Art Contemporain (MAMAC) which has some, er, interesting exhibits and also happened to be very close to the hotel. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around and enjoying the city and had a lovely dinner at another restaurant recommended by a friend – Citrus.

8/30/19 Friday, Arrival and Nice

We departed Newark late on Friday night on La Compagnie, which promotes itself as a boutique airline. They fly direct between Newark and Paris and, during the summer months, also from Newark to Nice. While it’s nice not to have to connect, what’s even better is that part of them being a boutique airline is that they only offer business class, so there are only about 70 passengers on the entire plane. That makes boarding easier, overhead storage space much more available and, obviously, there is a better class of service and sleeping in the skies in business class.

The planes are a bit old and the seats are not true lay-flat seats but the wedgie ones that are flat but angled to the ground — like Lufthansa’s old business class, if you’re familiar. But I will take that any day compared to flying in Economy, especially on the overnight flight.  The flight didn’t leave until 11:30, which is already way after my bedtime and landed at around 2 PM local time in Nice, which was helpful in terms of arriving at the hotel and a room actually being ready versus having to leave your bags at the hotel and wandering around the city like a sleep-deprived zombie with bed head.

The hotels available with only a week’s notice on the last big weekend of summer were, well, limited. At least if you wanted to stay on any sort of budget. My goal with the 20 countries/region thing is to do so in as immersive a way as possible, so trying not to default to a western (okay, American) bubble and just choose a Starwood (it’s still hard for me to say Marriott) property where everything will be predictable. No, the goal is a bit of unpredictability and a reasonable price.  This generally equates to three or maybe four star places that are local where I am more likely to either need or be able to practice my local language skills and where I could have more genuine interactions with real people.

I booked Le Geneve Hotel via Booking.com (since our stay just over two weeks ago, it has changed its name to Hotel Le G, oddly enough). It had user ratings of 8.7 out of 10, was said to be convenient to the Old Town of Nice and was only EUR 155 including breakfast.  I was a bit surprised that when I booked, Booking.com sent a follow-up saying that since I was spending over EUR 100/night, they’d throw in a taxi to the hotel from the airport.  Wait, what? Don’t think Starwood has ever offered me that. Yep. I gave them my details and sure enough, there was a driver with a sign and my name. He led us out to a nice, new black van and proceeded for the entire trip to essentially not hear us asking for him to turn up the air, so we arrived a bit more hot, sweaty and disheveled-feeling than typical overnight flight dishevelment. It was also a bit confusing to know how/whether to tip him since we had no idea how much such a taxi ride would have been, how he was being compensated etc. We gave him EUR 5, which was no doubt more than enough given how little tipping is used in Europe (at least not at the 20% type range as in the US) which was, we assume, still much less expensive than a taxi from the airport to the hotel.

When we walked into the hotel, which was just off of Place Garibaldi (a nice square with fountains, of course), what first hit me was how stinkin’ hot it was in the small reception area. The clerk was seated behind a small counter and had a couple of fans blowing on her and still looked miserable. It was around 90 F outside that day. Usually the lobby of a hotel is its best foot forward to make a positive first impression, so the lack of a seating area and A/C did not bode well for our stay. As we trudged up the stairs (don’t think I ever saw an elevator, though fortunately we were only one floor up), I was thinking of what my wife was going to say about my hotel selection. And I couldn’t imagine how I could’ve missed the A/C part as that was always one of my criteria.

As the clerk opened the door for us, I was relieved to discover that indeed, I had not overlooked the A/C part as the in-room unit was humming along and the room was noticeably cooler than the hallway or lobby.  Whew! It was small, but had a mini-fridge, a tea kettle for instant coffee and tea and even a small safe. It’d be just fine.

After taking 30 minutes to cool off, change our clothes and catch-up on what we’d missed during the flight (the WiFi was fast and free), we headed out to explore a bit. Google Maps on my phone was a bit confusing. It was clear we were indeed near the Old Town, but we ended up wandering down Promenade du Paillon through a park with some interesting sculptures and playground equipment. The delightful surprise was, towards the end, there was a large stone tiled area with jet fountains that would periodically turn on. On a day as hot as that one, children were laying around on the wet stone and, when the jets would turn on, would just squeal in delight and glee and commence running around and through the jets and having a wonderful time. Just pure joy.

The Old Town was lovely and my first real introduction to the narrow streets of many Provencal towns. Shops selling lavender, Provencal fabrics and souvenirs were interspersed with butcher shops, restaurants and sidewalk cafes. Tourists abounded, yet it retained a sense of calm, though admittedly it was a Friday rather than the weekend. We had dinner at Bar du Coin, which a friend had said had the best pizza in the world, so we had to check it out. It was good, but I’ll take a Chicago deep dish any time to that. Nevertheless, all the walking around, jetlag and lots of carbs put me into a quick sleep that night.

Introduction to the Provence Trip (and related entries)

Like most of the trips I have taken abroad, I approached a vacation in Provence with misconceptions and ignorance. But that, of course, is precisely why I want to travel — to literally and figuratively expand my horizons and see a perspective that is different than what I have had before and at least start to remedy that ignorance.

I have been to France before, but only Paris and a brief road trip between Paris and Geneva, Switzerland through the Bordeaux wine-growing region. But I am married to someone who lived in Geneva and thought nothing of popping down to Provence for a long weekend and couldn’t fathom that I had never been before. And so it wound up on my list of the 20 countries or regions that I want to visit before I turn 60 (it is number four, following Romania, Lithuania and Portugal).

As with those other trips, I started by trying to learn the language to the extent reasonably possible and to read up on the country. I had originally thought that we would be visiting in May, so I began with Level 1 of Pimsleur’s French in December so that I would peak at the right time as each of the five levels involves 30 lessons that are designed to be completed on a consecutive, daily basis. I had taken two years of French in college so thought it would all come back to me. What came back instead is a realization that I probably hadn’t learned as much in the first place as I thought I had. But at least I had some basic starting point.

I made good progress in the courses and finished as scheduled in April, but in the interim was told by someone who used to live in Geneva and would be accompanying me on this trip (which is to say, my wife) that May was absolutely NOT the right time to go to Provence. Oh. But by that time I was already in level 3. So I finished it and peaked early, thinking this extra time would allow me to keep improving my skills and do more reading. Yeah, that didn’t really happen, because then a German colleague joined us at our office and I decided I would focus on German on a daily basis and just add in a couple days a week such as the weekend where I would work on my French. Yeah, no….

I also didn’t do nearly as much reading on the culture and history of the country as I had done for the other countries, which is crazy since there is sooooo much more written on the culture and history of France than any of those other three countries.  I did, however, read several books about the experiences of various individuals who lived in Provence, bought a vacation home there, had a job there etc. They were somewhat helpful, but I did myself a disservice by not being as focused as I should have been. During the trip, I also finished a book about some of the folk stories and lore of the country that brought some of the regions alive — but after I had been to most of them. Doh!

All that to say, I started out even more ignorant than I had for the other three countries, though at least I had a French speaker traveling with me who had been there many times before. Which was both helpful and frustrating at times — for both of us, no doubt.

The original idea was that my wife was was going to create an itinerary for the trip, since she’d been there before, knew where to stay and what to see and the like. As the time grew closer, though, I became less confident that such an itinerary was being formed. So I went online and started ordering travel guides and a map. When they arrived, I marked places that seemed interesting and I noticed she was poring over the books as well. I wasn’t sure if that was a reflection of her trying to find ideas, trying to incorporate my interests into her master plan or something else. She had been with me on the trip to Portugal and had seen how I had organized it and so I assumed that she would be doing something similar and I should just back off and let her do so and not interfere because, obviously, I had never been to Provence before so how would I know how it was done? And she clearly had done this many times by all the stories she told of dining under the stars at a small hotel where they just brought out local wine and you laughed and drank and had wonderful food and magical experiences. Give me some of that, please!

As it turned out, there wasn’t a master plan or any type of itinerary (most assuredly not of the day-by-day variety captured in Word as is my wont). We didn’t even have hotels booked for each night, which is something I didn’t realize until we were already there. I suppose it should have been a clue about a week before we left when she asked if I would handle finding a hotel in Nice for the first two nights. Wait, in a week? In August? Over a US holiday weekend? The last weekend before French children return to school? Yep.

At the same time, I am (I think) smart enough to realize that my way isn’t always the best way and, yes, I’m a bit uptight, so maybe a more flexible approach would be a good thing. So we sallied forth.

What became clear rather quickly in reading those books, and later on the ground, is that I didn’t really understand where Provence was located. When I thought of Provence, I thought of lavender fields because of all the photos I had seen showing that and, well, the advertising of L’Occitane en Provence, one of my preferred makers of hand creams and other things. I somehow didn’t realize that it also included the French Riviera.

There are six different areas called departments in Provence:  Alpes-Maritimes, Var, Bouches-du-Rhone, Vaucluse, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Hautes-Alpes. The travel guide that was our primary reference didn’t include Hautes-Alpes, so it is perhaps no surprise that we didn’t make it up there, though we did hit the other five.

One of the other references I had purchased was an old school paper map of the area, which turned out to be so large that one needed an entire table on which to spread it to see anything, so not great for planning on-the-fly. Our rental car fortunately had GPS (which turned out to be very helpful since mobile reception was spotty along the way, thus frustrating the use of Google Maps or Waze), but GPS only works as well as the destinations you feed it and cannot overcome one’s failure to plan. Perhaps as a result of that, the route we actually took and where we stayed were not as, um, efficient as we might otherwise have chosen. Good thing we had unlimited kilometers on the rental!

At some point in time I will figure out how to create a map of the journey and will post it here. You will then see the somewhat circuitous route we took, which tracks along with not having a master plan or a good, small map.

While we did visit five of the six departments, we spent more time in some areas than others, which is my cue to say that now I know where to focus for the next visit. Except that there are 16 other countries/regions that need to be knocked off in 12 years, which doesn’t leave a lot of time/room for repeats and, essentially, do-overs.

Winding up/down in Sintra

The last stop on our trip (other than the final night in Lisbon, where there wasn't anything post-worthy) was to Sintra, which is just outside Lisbon. It is a quaint and rather touristy place, but for good reason -- there are several palaces and castles and related grounds in the area, as well as being located in Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais which provides some additional recreational activities.

We took the train from Braga to Sintra via Lisbon's Oriente station, which took about four hours in total, so we arrived in Sintra mid-afternoon on Friday.  Our hotel was only 650 meters from the train station, but somehow Google Maps thought it would be fun to take a short cut. I've noticed Google Maps doesn't seem to take into account hills when plotting out pedestrian routes and this was no exception. It took us down some narrow streets, at the bottom of which it then directed us to climb some stairs. And climb. And climb. All while carrying our luggage of course.

We stayed at the Sintra Boutique Hotel which was fine but nothing spectacular, though our room did have a view of the Palacio Nacional de Sintra, which was pretty much right across the street. The also brought a lot of people into the area, but the room was surprisingly quiet when the windows were closed. It also had the bonus (as compared to the wine barrels and the pousada) of having a coffee/espresso machine in the room, which was immediately put to use by Kimberley. The helpful woman at the front desk of the hotel recommended that, given that we were starting a weekend when the town is overrun with tourists, that we knock off the National Palace and another place I had on my list -- Quinta da Regaleira -- that afternoon and then hit Palacio Nacional da Pena first thing in the morning as the lines can get quite lengthy.

As was the case with much of the trip, with gorgeous weather outside and since we have already between the two of us seen many castles and palaces, we didn't elect to wait in line to tour the National Palace. Instead, we just took a few pics from the outside and headed on. What's most notable about the National Palace are the two white peaks rising out of the building side-by-side, which are actually twin chimneys in the kitchen.

It will surprise no one who has read the blogs so far (or who has toured Portugal) that the road leading to the Quinta da Regaleira was steep and windy. And once inside, there were even more hills and stairs. The whole thing seemed to be a series of terraced gardens and overlooks with castle-like points interspersed throughout, each of which had a circular staircase inside taking you up to the next level of the terraces.

 

There were also small ponds/lakes, caves and grottos. Kind of fascinating. And a good leg workout. One of the articles on Sintra or maybe it was a guide book noted that it was like a fairyland or a place where you would expect a hobbit to appear at any time and I couldn't agree more.

 


The next morning we took the advice to arrive at the Pena Palace early to be there when the doors opened at 9:30. There was a bus that left pretty much in front of our hotel at 9:15 but the helpful receptionist at the hotel had also noted that you could taken an Uber (which she charmingly pronounced YOU-bur), so we tried that out. We watched the driver's approach to us on the app with a bit of apprehension as he seemed to be taking a very circuitous route to get to the hotel. We learned later that there are a bunch of one-way streets in the area. So after he picked us up, we ended up doubling back and coming nearly to the hotel again as we ascended. And ascended. And ascended. Very narrow, winding roads and I am glad we didn't think this would have made a good hike! We arrived at the entrance around 9:15 and the line was already really backed up. Kimberley waited in entry line while I went up to get in a different line for tickets. There was a regular ticket booth, but also a series of three kiosks you could use. Except two of the three kiosks were non-functional. The line was really slow and Kimberley was nearly to the gate when I finally got my shot at the kiosk only to discover (after a failed attempt) that it would only take debit cards or a credit card with a PIN.  Doh! Fortunately I actually did have my debit card with me and it worked like a charm.

Once inside, there was a long -- you guessed it -- steep road up to the palace. You could pay EUR 3 per person for a bus transfer to the top, but what's the fun in that (especially if you're a tight-fisted accountant and you're already nearly used to all the hill climbing)? So up we went. And I think walking up made for a better experience as you caught glimpses of the palace through the trees in certain spots.

It really is quite a stunner, particularly with the bold colors and all of the interesting details. They also had a variety of tiles, both flat and three-dimensional and one of the latter seemed to be some type of war scene or coat of arms. And there were amazing views of the area extending to the sea.

 


After we had a coffee at the cafe, we headed out on the trails through the surrounding woods, including up to the High Cross -- a cross at the highest point of the property, as the name might suggest.

One the way down, we took a sort of off-road trail to try to get closer to a stone figure we saw from the palace but didn't seem to be on the regular trails. We found it, but on the descent back to the regular trail, I wound up skidding on loose dirt and falling on a combination of my rear and my right leg that was bent fully back -- the right way, to be clear, but not a position where all of your body weight should be on the joint in that position. Ummm.... Was able to get up but was in excruciating pain. And, oh yeah, still had to hobble down the hills on cobblestone paths. They were less than charming on the way down in my state. I made it, though, and was able to also hobble with suitcase back to the train station (not the scenic route with stairs this time) and we headed to Lisbon for our final night.

The only thing I wish we had had time to see in Sintra was Castelo dos Mouros which, as its name suggests, is a moorish castle. I had read about it and thought it would be interesting but the receptionist had noted that there wasn't much to see and you could see it from Pena Palace. Um, maybe we could have seen it from a particular view if we had done the tour of the Pena Palace, but otherwise didn't see it other than from the city center where you could see it high on the hills, but not close enough to get a good picture.

Braga and a night at a pousada

I can't lie -- I didn't want to leave the wine barrels and the quiet life at Quinta da Pacheca. While we were there, guys had been working on both rebuilding a section of wall and others were working on digging and setting up fence posts in a field. As we were leaving, we got to see them planting new vines in that same area and can attest to what the wine tour guide had noted about the soil being rocky. Looking at the soil (I realize this isn't a great picture), it's hard to see how a small vine can survive there, but clearly they do.

Our next step was Braga, which involved a train that connected in a suburb of Porto called Ermesinde.  While it was a decent sized train station (5-6 tracks, I believe, with escalators versus only stairs), the area has clearly seen more prosperous days. Our inbound train from Regua was delayed by enough minutes that we missed our connection, but another was coming through in about 30 minutes, so we set out to find some coffee.

One thing we have both commented on is the quality of espresso-based coffee drinks. They are consistently good. The drip coffee, though? Not so good. What is interesting to me, though, is that there is almost always an insulated pitcher or other container of hot milk to add to your coffee, which is nice.

Anyway, we found a coffee shop (which also sold lottery tickets, which was clearly convenient if the steady stream of people there for that purpose was any indication -- the jackpot was at something like EUR 57 million, so I get why that would be enticing). I went up to use my Portuguese and order a cappuccino and -- one of my favorite Portuguese phrases that makes me feel like I belong -- a meia de leite (cafe au lait). I didn't really see a price list, but considered that since we were at a train station there would be the public area premium for people passing through that didn't know where to go locally.  Yet at the same time, some of the special combos they were advertising like a croissant and coffee for EUR 1,50 made me think perhaps it wouldn't be that expensive.  But I figured it would be at least EUR 2 for both, so I handed her EUR 3.  She looked at me funny and handed me back EUR 1,20 in change.  What?!  Yeah. EUR 0,90 each. Amazing.  PLUS it was really good.

The local train to Braga was uneventful. Braga is the third largest city in Portugal and wasn't really covered in the tourist-type books I had looked at, though I had found some information online and we set out to check them out. There is apparently some sort of Roman history here with various cathedrals and castles and there was a Roman festival going on -- though I confess that I found a woman in Roman attire speaking on her cell phone a bit odd.

We were able to see most of the sites within less than an hour.  There is a beautiful stone entrance to a pedestrian-only walkway, Arca da Porta Nova. The medieval Jardim de Santa Barbara outside the Medieval wing of the Episcopol Palace that is bright and well-maintained with a central fountain and which was once part of the Convent of Remedios.  There was a plaza with a large BRAGA sign (think IAMSTERDAM) and, of course, Raio Palace. I had wanted to see the Bom Jesu do Monte which looks pretty amazing -- lots of steps (because, you know, Portugal and hills) criss-crossing and supposed to have a gorgeous view at the time -- but didn't see an easy way of getting out there (three miles outside of town) in an expeditious way.

I was more nervous this day than most because the hotel for the night was somewhere in Amares, but I couldn't exactly figure out how to get there.  It was clear that Braga was the closest train station and Google Maps said that Amares was about 25 kilometers beyond Braga. It appeared that there may be some bus service to the area, but it wasn't clear where the bus would stop in relation to the hotel and whether there might also be taxis when we arrived that could help get us there.  So I really wanted to make sure that we started to get there long before it was dark, hence my willingness to skip Bom Jesu.

What to do? In a moment of Americanism, I wondered to my phone whether Uber might be available (it certainly had not been in Regua).  Why yes, Uber is indeed available. Really? So we hailed an Uber that was there in five minutes. The driver was from Brazil but with my limited European Portuguese, we got along okay. He said that he's only lived in Braga a few years and wasn't familiar with Amares, but had GPS, so....

He seemed a bit concerned about where we were going.  We were climbing and going through some narrow village streets and he kept asking if we wanted to go into the city center or some larger roads, but we said to keep on and follow the GPS (though he seemed to have some difficulty doing so, missing a couple turns). Did we want to stop and take some pictures? No, we're good.

We finally arrived at the destination and noted that we were there but he seemed confused and asked a taxi driver next to where we had parked where the pousada was. The taxi driver said that this was it.  Oh.  He seemed both surprised and impressed by it.

Pousadas are large mansions, palaces, or other interesting locations of historic interest that have been transformed into lodging. As soon as I read about them, I had decided that we should stay at least one night at such a place. The one I selected is Pousada Mostiero Amares, which is the former convent of Santa Mario do Bouro. Beautiful grounds, lots of massive stonework and a moss-covered courtyard giving the appearance of ruins made for a stunning setting. While the food wasn't the best I have had in Portugal, the dining room itself was just cool with all the stone work, including a gigantic table that won't be moving anyplace anytime soon.

A brief wander around Regua

We had a sort of rest day our second day at Quinta da Pacheca. We walked the 15-20 minutes or so down to Regua, the town where we had arrive on the train. There's a nice pedestrian bridge that crosses the river and we happened to be there at almost the perfect time when the shadows made the reflections of the arcs in the bridge look almost like complete circles.

There were several river cruise ships docked there as well as a few smaller, local boats. We looked into the latter, but one was just a kitschy one-hour cruise for EUR 10 and the other was an afternoon/evening cruise for several hours, but then you had to take a train or bus back, so we just continued wandering around the town.

Like Porto, most of the tiles on buildings were set up quite high rather than at street level, though there were several places where various scenes had been painted on tiles, most related to the making of wine which makes sense, given all of the vineyards in the area. I've included a few here.

I think it's safe to say that one of the highlights was stumbling across a farmers market just as it was getting over. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as dry beans and meats. Outside, there was a truck laden with huge bags of potatoes and at the side of the building an enterprise selling live chickens and chicks. Cherries are in season and Kimberley loves them, so we decided to buy some from a woman at one of the stands. The price seemed to be EUR 1 for an entire kilogram (over two pounds) of cherries. Suffice it to say that we didn't need an entire kilo of cherries, and just asked her to stop filling the bag at a certain point in time, but she kept pressing to add more when we offered the EUR 1 anyway. I used my best Portuguese to tell her it was fine but she still seemed confused why we wouldn't want to get our full kilo. Lovely lady.

I'm still not quite used to seeing meat hanging in the windows. The big ham things, yes, but I still find the goats or sheep (not sure which) a little unsettling.

We stopped at a somewhat local place for lunch that seems to be the regular lunch place of several employees of a local company (based on their matching uniforms). It was also the type of place where I think the server appreciated my attempts at Portuguese given her limited English. We had a table overlooking the river and that gorgeous view and some large salads only set us back about EUR 10.

After the long climb back up (always the hills....) to Quinta da Pechaca, we enjoyed a few more hours relaxing and reading on the deck of our wine barrel suite. Just so beautiful.

To the wine country

While Portugal is known for its port wine, of course, it also produces many other types of wine. The Douro River Valley is the heart of their wine production and was (particularly with an oenophile like Kimberley along on the trip) an obvious must-see.  While I created the overall agenda and booked hotels for the trip, she mentioned an interesting place in the valley that had some interesting accommodations. I checked it out and we were able to book one of them for two nights, so off we set.

We took the train from Porto to Regua. Since it was only a two hour ride and it was an intercity train, we didn't bother to pay extra for first class. Second class was generally fine, but was packed with other tourists also going to the wine valley, including one group of guys who were (at 9 AM already clearly imbibing something that wasn't coffee and with a steady stream of food being pulled out of a picnic basket blocking much of the aisle). 

We were lucky to (eventually) get seats together, not to mention on the side that overlooked, toward the end, the gorgeous river and valley. At one point the train kind of turned a bit and boom -- there was this absolutely stunning view.  I was trying to take photos, but you know how it is with a fast-moving train, poles and power lines getting in the way and viewed through a dirty window.

We grabbed a quick taxi on arrival to our destination -- Quinta da Pacheca.  It is a functioning vineyard and produces -- as we learned on the wine tour later -- about 700,000 bottles per year of white, red, and port wines. But what had lured us in were their wine barrels. Not those filled with wine, but cabins that you sleep in that are shaped to look like a gigantic wine barrel.  Super cool. While compact inside, it feels spacious with the round shape (and a round sunlight overhead) and with a large round door at the back that opens onto your own deck where you can relax and look over the vineyards.  Really unique and peaceful. We spent much of the afternoon there yesterday just reading and watching the swallows and other birds maneuver around the vineyards.

The wine tour and tasting was interesting. Nutshell, the winery has been in existence over 100 years. While the region has well over 100 varieties of grapes, Pacheca uses a relatively small subset of something like 20 in their various products. They still stomp grapes with their feet as they believe it better releases tannins and colors without the risk of the incorporating sourness of seeds that might occur with a machine pressing the grapes. Each of the concrete areas pictured here holds over 200 kg of grapes and the stompers, working arm in arm, take over 30 minutes to stomp from one side to the next.

We also got to see their old cave, though most of their production is off-site. One interesting thing I learned is that while wine can be placed into new barrels, port must be placed only in used barrels/containers. The large containers shown here can be used for over 100 years. Also, the difference between a tawny port and a ruby port is whether or not they are oxidized. A tawny port receives oxygen throughout the process, so it doesn't oxidize as quickly upon opening and can last a year. A ruby port, on the other hand, is more like "regular" wine in that it is not exposed to as much oxygen and thus, like a bottle of red wine, must be consumed within three days or it will become oxidized. (At least I think that's what I heard.) 

Another interesting point I learned about making wine in Portugal relates to usage of water.  The soil here is in the river valley is not good and one quickly hits rocks, so the grape vines are no more than 15-18 inches deep. They are allowed to water vines in their first five years, but not after that. So how, when summer months are often well into the 90s, do the vines not die?  As you might imagine, it's a microclimate. So while it is toasty during the day, it drops down quite a bit at night. This rapid change creates some humidity that then provides moisture for the vines. Because of the climate, their cave also gets a bit too warm. They control this by watering the pebble flooring of the cave which helps cool things. 

During the wine tasting, we had another random chat with interesting people -- a mother and daughter. The mother is originally from India, but settled long ago in the US -- first Rochester, NY and then Minneapolis, MN. I can only imagine the shock of winter coming from India. Their family has done a lot of travel throughout the years and the daughter who was with her on this trip studied in Brazil and Peru and picked up Portuguese. While she studied neuroscience in university, she felt a little burned out and not sure she wanted to proceed directly to medical school. So she took a few years off to volunteer for the Peace Corps in Mozambique, which is a former Portuguese colony (if that's the right word) so her Portuguese from her time in Brazil was directly applicable. She is training local teachers on how to teach science, and has spent a lot of time traveling in the area. She said that Mozambique is very safe and her primary mode of transportation is hitchhiking -- yes, as someone who doesn't look like she's from Mozambique and as a single female. Amazing. Just had a lovely time chatting with both of them and now Mozambique may be on my list for future travel.

We had an amazing dinner at the restaurant here with some of their own wine, and headed off to bed, looking at the stars through the porthole (no pun intended) in our wine barrel roof. Just magical.

A quick day in Porto

A quick day in Porto

The Portugese rail system, Comboios de Portugal, has an app with English as an option so you can order online and reserve a seat as with Lufthansa. Of course, the only works if your credit card works. Despite having notified Citibank of my travel plans, they chose to deny the charge. And once denied -- even though I had confirmed via response text to Citibank that it was indeed me -- the app refused to let me re-submit because (lucky, lucky me) Citibank and Mastercard were protecting me. [Sigh.]

The app also had an option where you could add an additional passenger, though you needed to enter for all passengers their ID details -- identity card, passport, driver's license or a couple of other options. So I kept having to ask Kimberley for her passport number, and then the app would reject me (thanks again, Citibank) and I'd have to start from the beginning. I finally figured out how to add Kimberley's details into the app so I didn't have to keep re-entering them. And when I finally realized nothing was going to happen with my Citibank card (and they only offered a US toll free number - grrrr) I used my American Express card which I didn't have with me but, fortunately, have memorized the number and other details. Finally went through.

Problem was that it only listed my details and not Kimberley's. Hmmm...  Since it seemed keyed on your ID number, I downloaded the app on her phone and set up an account for her, entering the ID details so it should pop up, right? Nope. And of all days, the activity wasn't showing up on my AMEX app so I couldn't tell if it had indeed charged me for both tickets or only one. And it still hadn't updated in the morning, either.  Odd.  So I figured we would just need to check in with a -- gasp -- real human at the train station. Which we did. And apparently in all my anger and frustration with Citi, I had indeed neglected to add Kimberley as a passenger the last and final time. 

I asked the very helpful agent if he could put us together on the train. He said something about my seat being a single seat so I assumed that he had managed to put us together or across the aisle or something.  Well, kind of.  It was 1 + 2 seating so I was in the one seat and Kimberley was in the one seat the row ahead of me.  Close enough, I guess? The more odd thing, though, was the seat numbering system (or lack thereof, as I couldn't quite understand its logic). For example, my seat number was adjacent to Kimberley's (she was 81 and I was 82), even though we were on the same side of the train and in different rows.  And on the two side, it was 75/73, then 76/74 and then jumped to 85/83 (the latter was in Kimberley's row).

So here's your brain puzzle for the day. Solve for the seat numbers represented by question marks, where seating is left to right 1+2:

?  -- 73  75
? -- 74  76
81 -- 83  85
82 -- ?   ?

I will admit that I do not have the answer to this quiz, but would be curious if someone else does.

We traveled in first class, which probably wasn't worth the little bit extra, but it was only EUR 45 for a three hour ride. WiFi was free on the train (and much more dependable than the free WiFi on Amtrak, though not as good as the free WiFi I experienced on LitRail in Lithuania) so I was able to draft yesterday's blog easily. (By comparison, I am attempting this one while en route to Regua but there are no tray tables and no WiFi so not as convenient.) The car was very new and clean, though apparently first class does not include free coffee (contrast with both free coffee, a bottle of water AND a free sandwich on LitRail).  I paid EUR 1,10 for a coffee that was basically an espresso in size but with an intensity that was akin to drinking grappa as it felt like it would grow hair on my chest, which wasn't my objective. It was an uneventful trip, though, and arrived right on schedule.

We grabbed the Metro from Campanha station and took it to for about 10 minutes and it dropped us off just 200 meters or so from our hotel, the Art Senses Rooms and Suites. It was just a door next to a supermarket with a keypad and we would have missed it were I not looking for the house number. We rang and the door clicked open. We quickly found ourselves heading up a light colored wood staircase next to an exposed rock wall -- very modern looking. Our hostess met us, got us checked in such as it was, and helped us with a map and some suggestions on routes to take and which things on my list might not be worth the visit. I was very impressed by how automated everything was, including that our suite, "Musica," was accessible via a combination lock built into the handle. Same with entry via the keypad from the ground floor as there wasn't any sort of attendant on duty at all hours. The room was also large with two comfortable chairs with a few pastries, apples and a carafe of water awaiting our arrival. Kimberley's favorite feature, though, was the Nespresso machine. Very surprising, too, that even though our room faced the street and there was a bus stop right outside, it was really quiet.

We set out on to see the city. The hotel is located right at Casa da Musica, which is apparently an amazing music hall that is said to be worth the effort to tour even when you're not attending a concert, but given our limited time I satisfied myself with the view from outside.  

We then continued on to a place the hostess had recommended called Mercado Bom Sucesso. To call it a "food court" would be to grossly understate what it is. The sign called it an "urban concept. But basically this 1940s-era market hall has been completely updated and includes a bunch of permanent mini-restaurants and a few other stores on two levels. While they had central racks where you were to place your tray and dishes when you were done, each restaurant seemed to have its own trays and dishes and you could see the attendants taking the dirty dishes back to each restaurant.  Fascinating. This collage shows an overview of the venue, a literal over-view of the mini-restaurant we chose, and a gratuitous food shot. The food was tasty and I enjoyed that they had a basil plant and kept picking off leaves to add as garnishes to plates when served or to actually place in the sauce itself. Wonder how many of those plants they go through each day....

Fueled, we headed to Jardim do Palacio de Cristal or Crystal Palace Gardens , which had not been on my list but was a waypoint on the map the hostess had outlined for us. Shortly upon entering, we heard quite a loud shriek, which it turned out emanated from a wandering peacock. We watched him for a while and then continued on, only to find another, and another, and another. There were only a few female pea fowl and they all appeared to be entirely unimpressed with the displays by the guys. Certainly was fascinating for the humans to watch, though!

Pea fowl weren't the only fowl there. There were more roosters and chickens, some baby chicks, various ducks, sea gulls, and, in some places, all of them together. Strange, strange combination -- especially with the chickens in the mix as I am not used to encountering them in public places.

Porto, like Lisbon, is hilly, so there was a lot of up-and-down hiking throughout the day. We started out mostly just walking down, though, as we wanted to make it to the waterfront. We lucked out finding a staircase that wound back and forth and made the descent a bit easier on the knees. The waterfront features the typical array of cafes where you could sit outside and have a coffee or glass of wine or beer and watch the world go by. Good people watching, to be sure, but fewer performance artists than you might expect in that sort of touristy area (you know, like people who are in costume and pretend they're a statue and then move and startle people, yet looking creepy all the time).

The primary objective at the waterfront, though, was the Dom Luis I bridge, which was designed by Gustave Eiffel who, if not clear by the name, designed the Eiffel Tower. And right next to it was supposed to be a portion of Muralha Fernandina, an old medieval wall.  What I didn't realize until we got there (given that everything looks flat on the map) was that the bridge is a multi-level bridge, with cars at the bottom level by the waterfront, and a pedestrian walkway wayyyyyy up at the top level along with one of the metro lines. Oh, come on!  Helpfully, there was a funicular to take you up there, but.... The wall wasn't in most of the tourist books and I couldn't tell whether one could actually get TO or ON the wall or only closer, so decided my heart would go on if I just noted it and continued on my way climbing up a more moderate hill on towards other destinations.

On that climb I finally had my first pastel de nata, a traditional Portuguese pastry that I can best describe as a cream tart. I had seen them before, but wanted to buy one at a place that looked like they may have actually been made there, versus at a small cafe (like the one the first dwe walked day in Lisbon where we had an espresso with the Dutch woman who happened to be eating). Kimberley is also not really into sweets, which made stopping for one less appealing. But during one uphill climb, we came across a store front display case from a cafe that showed all passersby what variety of pastries were available inside. Including the pastel de nata, of course, as well as an almond thing that Kimberley had had before. She said that if I got a pastel de nata, she'd buy one of those other things. Well, twist my arm. It was delightful. I am now, unfortunately, hooked on them. Light, flaky curst with a not-too-sweet creamy center.  Yum!

Tiles continued to be a theme in Porto. They were a bit different than in Lisbon, though. Yes, some were the same colorful, flat design, but they also have some three-dimensional tiles in Porto that were quite beautiful. The tiles tended to be placed higher on the buildings rather than on the entire facade, or sometimes just narrow strips of tiles on the front rather than a full display. We also learned that in Porto, tiles are definitely not just for houses. In fact, there were a surprising number of places where murals were created on tiles.

One example of this is at the Sao Bento train station.  The main entry hall has gorgeous tile displays on every wall -- some in the more traditional blue and white, others in color around the top. Really stunning.  The other example is Igreja do Carmo, a cathedral from the late 17th century that is covered in azulejo tiles and a good example of rococo style in Porto.

The last planned stop for the day was one that I still hadn't made up my mind on. Livraria Lello is advertised as the most beautiful bookstore in the world and I am a sucker for a good bookstore. Apparently it was also a favorite of J. K. Rowling when she was teaching in the area, so it has a shrine of sorts for Harry Potter (and some say that the architecture of the bookstore may have influenced some scenes in the books, but I wouldn't know). The reason I hadn't decided whether I wanted to go in is that multiple online reviews called it a terrible tourist trap and worth neither the money nor the wait. Many said that the line to enter wraps around the block and it can sometimes take up to 45 minutes just to buy your ticket (yes, a ticket to a bookstore) before you wait in the other line. They apparently try to meter how many people are allowed inside at one time, but it is still packed and people complain that they can't get good photos, let alone think of actually shopping for a book.  Hmmm....

It was just a block away from Igreja do Carmo so I thought it was at least worth a look. There were some people outside, but not a long line. Oh, why not. So you have to buy your EUR 5 ticket (which fee can be applied to the purchase of one book -- you can't pool your money with others to buy a book you might really want that's more than EUR 5) a couple storefronts down, which also has merchandise available for sale. In order to try to make it easier to get around in the book store itself, you have to leave backpacks, bags and strollers in free lockers in that other area. Selfie sticks are (thank goodness) prohibited in the bookstore. It took about 10 minutes to by our ticket and the size of the process/area attests to how much money they're raking in for tourism. But there was no wait once we got back to the bookstore entrance itself. The staff member working there said that it had been a crazy weekend but that this particular Monday was oddly quiet. It was still rather crowded, especially wth people wanting to pause on the narrow staircase to have their photos taken while others were trying to get to the second floor.

It really is gorgeous. The main feature is a staircase (with steps painted red) in the center that then splits to the right and left and curls around to deposit you on the second level. It has beautiful carved wooden details and is mesmerizing from pretty much any angle. There is also a gorgeous colored glass (not sure if it would properly be called stained glass or leaded glass or something else) ceiling on the second story. There are interesting miniature plaster busts/faces that are either attached to dividers in the shelves or hanging down or something that I've not seen in other old bookstores. And also a track in the lower floor where a sled of heavy books can be moved along the way with ease.  As we left, they gave each of us one of the two volumes of small booklets about the bookstore since we hadn't used our tickets towards the purchase of another book. 

So overall, worth the visit, at least on a slower day.

We ended the day on the amazing rooftop terrace at the Art Sense. Relaxing way to end the day.