Porto Please.
So. This trip was [unintentionally] kind of a milestone marker for us. It was almost EXACTLY a year from my first ever trip to Europe. Asher's first ever flight[s]. And the initial step to Jason's first ever expat contract. Almost EXACTLY a year ago when Asher was just a teeny, tiny, newborn, we were invited to a wedding in Portugal -- which served as a beautiful cover for the primary goals of this trip to Europe... HOUSE HUNTING. After attending the incredibly fun, delicious, party that was the Portuguese wedding, we hopped on over to Germany to look for our home-to-be.
Jason travels to Porto quite a bit for work [lucky duck]. So it isn't unusual for this to come up as a travel destination for us. However, we only realized once we got there that it was actually kind of an anniversary trip for our fam. We looked back thru pics [pre-blog, pre-fancy camera, pre-photog workshop and a mere 2.5 months after having a baby] and relived some of the moments of our monumental, memory-making vacation. Wow, its SO cliche... but OH the diff 1 year makes!
So, a year after ALL OF THAT and ALL OF EVERYTHING ELSE that has happened since then [ahem, see all previous blog posts, lol!], we found ourselves back in the beautiful country of Portugal. The fact that we had been there before, make planning our vacay way less stressful. We were able to take our time, be a bit more casual about our to-see & to-eat list, which was kind of nice. Jason flew in for work on Wed & Asher + mama met him the next day. PS. It's a lot of freaking work to travel with a baby and have to get the house and cats ready for a weekend away... NOTE TO HUSBAND: next time, I'm leaving first.
We stayed at the hotel that the hubs normally stays at for work, its outside of the main city area, but still close enough to easily get around by taxi/uber. Unfortunately, I woke up with a nasty cough on day 1 of our trip...so Asher and I took the morning SUPER easy, stayed at the hotel & both took a morning nap. Jason met up with us for lunch and we headed into Porto. It was a really cool experience to be in a beautiful, foreign country/city, but still feel familiar about my surroundings. We were oh-so-happy to be in the sunshine. And although it wasn't as warm as a typical Portugal weekend, it was still beautiful [especially compared to the rainnnnnnnny days we've been having in Germany this summer]. So, after lunch & a trip to a Porto pharmacy, I started feeling better. We walked around, shopped around, and before we knew it, it was time for dinner.
We ate at a delicious Italian restaurant in a really cute part of Porto. This area has lots of restaurants, but also a ton of bars that look like they'd be prettttty lively at night. Next time, we'll leave Asher with a babysitter :) Then headed back to the hotel for an evening of netflix & an early bedtime. I woke up feeling SO much better and was ready for a packed day of touristing!
We started off with a phenomenal brunch at Zenith Brunch & Cocktails. The menu was well-crafted & the ambience was great. We had a short wait before being seated, but there was actually a street festival going on that gave us something to do in the meantime. I ordered the Bacon & Egg Pancacke. Which was basically bacon, egg & cheese sandwhiched between buttermilk pancakes. UMM YUM. & Jason opted for his new standard, eggs benedict. Asher had eggs on sourdough toast. We literally ate every bite & loved every taste of it!
We were ready to walk toward the river, but the hubs noticed that there was a cute shopping street around the corner and he knew I'd want to check it out. There were a bunch of affordable, local shops and [of course] I found a few things that needed to make their way into my suitcase.
So after asking Jason to hand me some cash a few times, we headed along our merry [ahem..Murray] way :)
As we were walking, we stumbled upon another street fair and since we both really enjoy wandering around and stumbling upon interesting finds, we made another quick detour. NOW: FUNNY STORY Jason lost his wedding ring...a long time ago...He literally has no idea where it went. It's probably floating around with his prescription glasses and about 8 pairs of shoes that he's left in random places never to be seen again... PS that was actually a thing for a while...Jason leaving shoes in random places is a long-running joke amongst our friends. ANYWAY, we had JUST been talking about buying him a new one and low-and-behold we found a vendor selling handmade/handcut, steel rings. Jason tried several on and we both fell in love with one of them. SO, now Jason is a wedding-banded-but always-married-man again and we have this cool story about how we found his ring in Portugal!
Our main plan for the day was to taste some Port wine! All of the Port wine caves are actually located in a town called Gaia just across the river from Porto and aside from wine tasting, you get the MOST INCREDIBLE VIEW of Porto from the Gaia side. It's just insane. I can't believe that people live there and work there and that it's just a normal part of their every day lives. There are a couple of ways to get to the Gaia, we took a gondola that allows for an awesome view from above. Tickets were about €9.
We headed to one of the Port wine houses that had been recommended to us by some of Jason's coworkers, Sandeman. Asher was in a great mood, but was not interested in being held or in the stroller, so instead of doing a tour, we sat outside and ordered some wine & snacks! They had a great outdoor space with plenty of room for the baby to roam & play.
I'll be honest, I am not a big fan of Port wine...it tastes way more like brandy or some other strong liquor [to me] than wine. I DID, however, LOVE this sparkling port cocktail!
Remember how I said that Gaia has the ultimate best view of Porto, ever...Well. Yeah. Here's what I mean. This was our view while we sipped at Sandeman.
PS it was a really windy day ... actually ... a really windy weekend.
There are lots of restaurants and street vendors that line the Douro River on both the Porto & Gaia sides. So we just spent the afternoon browsing and sipping and seeing and ended up finding a restaurant with a truly magnificent view of Porto. I mean. Is this not the most postcard picturesque places you've ever seen?
We have nothing great to report about dinner - that's what we get for being so casual about planning this day. But overall it was a really awesome Saturday. I just kept thinking about our new life and feeling so lucky that we have the opportunity to so easily see these kinds of beautiful places. We took the gondola back and walked across the bridge, finding a few more pretty photo spots along the way.
Traveling with a baby makes for early evenings, but Asher just wanted to keep playing when we got back to the hotel. So we ordered some wine to the room and hung out for a bit before giving him a bath & putting him to bed. He really is a happy little traveler. His personality makes our current lifestyle a lot more doable than it might be otherwise.
ever yours,
lindsey
