Dixo's, Fracesinhas and Canadians - Welcome to Portugal

Dearest friends and family. If you ever have a chance to venture out to Europe and you want to save a dime (even if you don't), boy do I have the place for you.

I admit that before I came to Barcelona and saw that Ryan Air has 40 Euro round trips to Porto, Portugal, I had never really heard of the city. You may have, though - situated on the bank of the Douro river, Porto is the home of the famous Port wine. But that's not all it has to offer. Porto may not yet be a tourist hotspot in Europe, but it is a city with great views, a unique charm, cheap food, and one of the best hostels in all of Europe.

We arrived in Porto late at night on Thursday without knowing too much about what was in store. Walking out of the metro at 11:30 PM, we noticed that all the streets were cobblestone (big plus) but they were empty and run down (big minus). After some difficulty, we found the hostel - Dixo's Porto Hostel. It's run by a brother and a sister that are in their late 20s and have an affinity for serving people and making friends. Pedro and Joanna couldn't have been nicer and more welcoming to two clueless Americans walking into their beautiful, 5-story renovated hostel. Pedro immediately invited us upstairs to meet guests that were finishing dinner and drinking Port wine. He showed us our room, introduced us to the hodge-podge group of Europeans and Brazilians speaking broken Spanish, and showed us the balcony. From there, we could see the calm Douro river, the famous Dom Luis Bridge (designed by someone with the last name Eiffel?), and a handful of wineries lit up on the hill opposite the river. I could tell we were going to have a good time.

The first day, we woke up to a free all-you-can eat breakfast (very rare in hostels) and a perfectly sunny day. We walked out onto the balcony to see the city for the first time that we were about to explore. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of how it looked:

The first day, we headed out to explore the city streets. It's important to keep in mind that Portugal is going through some very difficult times economically. In Porto itself, almost every street presented dilapidated, abandoned buildings that would be right next to fully restored apartments with perfect exteriors. Porto is safe, and these fallen buildings don't necessarily mean you're in a bad neighborhood. So, we walked along the cobblestone streets and saw the Sao Bento trains station, known for its huge murals on the wall depicting scenes from Portugal's history with azulejo tiles. The station let in light well and made the walls look pretty impressive.

From there, we walked along the main plaza with the most well kept, historical buildings until we hit the market street. We walked down that for a while, past the Bolhao open-air market to the well-known Cafe Majestic. We had heard a lot about this place - the oldest cafe in Porto - and we got what we expected. Although the menu was pricey, we ordered coffees and enjoyed the dated, ornate interior. One of the best things about this day was me being able to use Portuguese after not speaking it for a long time. Waiters, clerks and people at the hostel were all excited to speak with us Americans, and they always were surprised that I could hold a conversation with them. It was fun.

We ended day one walking along the Dom Luis Bridge. It was really high up. I mean, really. The guard rail went up to about my pelvis, so I was very focused on keeping my balance. The sun was setting, though, and we had a great view of the city and the hills around the river. After that, we headed back to the hostel for a fun night with our fleeting, world-traveling Indian, Canadian, Brazilian, Korean and Spanish friends. Day 1 was marked by exploring the city, conquering the Francisinha (Porto's own ham, sausage, steak, egg, cheese, gravy and french fry sandwich), and seeing the sun set over the Douro. 

Day 2 was a blast. It can basically be summed up in this quick moral - when you're in a city by the beach in Europe, and you see that a Vespa rental is 11 Euro/day per person, rent the Vespa. We kept flipping back in forth until we decided to do it, and it was a blast. We saw the Portuguese coastline being bombarded 10-12 foot waves, shared the road with Europeans, and ate a feast at a hole in the wall restaurant (he was very surprised to see American tourists). Around sunset, we watched waves crash into the pier and create 40 foot high fountains of spewing water. It was unreal - even more so since a man got washed into the water and had to be rescued by a very slow, albeit successful Portuguese coast guard. It had everyone worried. At night, we went to a Fado restaurant with people from the hostel to listen to traditional Portuguese music. It was open mic, and it was all 50 year old men from the neighborhood, so I once again imagined my Dad and his friends getting up and singing slow, powerful and emotional ballads...probably won't happen any time soon. We followed that with dinner with a bunch of Koreans from the hostel. What a random but fun table to be sitting at. I learned a lot about Portuguese and Korean culture - two birds with one stone. 

On day three, we were sad to be checking out of the hostel, but we had a lot we wanted to hit before be caught our flight at 7PM. On the schedule - climb the highest tower in Portugal (Torre dos Clerigos), try some authentic Portuguese pastries, and travel across the river to go wine tasting.

If there's one image in my head I've had of wine tasting, it's a bunch of well dressed people paying a stiff fee to walk from table to table, take a swig of wine and swish it around in their mouths, and spit it back out into a silk napkin. Maybe in other parts of the world this is true. For us, however, our Porto experience was much different. We heard there were two places on the hill that offered free tours and tastes. When you walk into the winery - we did Croft's and Taylor's - it looks nice, refined and relaxed on the inside. She brings you a glass of wine (is this really free?) and says that a free tour of the winery will start in 5 minutes. She also says that afterwards, they give you another free glass (one white and one red). I still don't know how much of a wine fan I am, but I'm a fan of things that are genuinely free, so this was great. We got to learn about the Port-making process (twice) and gawk at the size of the barrels lined up end on end of dormant, slowly aging ruby and tawny Port wine. It was a lot of fun and the whole day cost us about 7 euro on a whole - not bad for two college kids on vacation!

Megan outside Croft - classy winery picture #1

Endless hallway of barrels of wine. Any college fratboy's dream.

Classy winery picture #2

Classy winery picture #3

Portugal was a blast because the Portuguese were nice, the food was plentiful and good, and we stepped outside of our comfort zone to meet the other travelers in our hostel. Porto was a perfect place for a jam-packed yet cheap escape from boring, hum drum, same-old Barcelona...

This weekend - Sevilla!