When booking our flights, we allowed ourselves a generous 40 days to walk the Camino, so after arriving in Santiago and spending an extra day there, we hopped on a bus south to Porto for a change of scenery. It seemed a lovely city, and despite the Camino being over, we still managed to get plenty of steps in!
My first priority upon arrival was buying a change of clothes – there’s only so many days you can alternate the same two identical black tshirts before going slightly mad. We split ways – mum looking for a pair of pants and maybe some shoes, and me looking for, well, anything I could find! By the end of the morning I had another two tshirts, a new pair of shorts, and a skirt, so I consider my mission a success!
Another priority, of course, was seeing the sights of Porto. It’s a city full of churches, azulejos (hand painted blue tile murals), and skinny backstreets where you never know what you’ll find. Unfortunately, it’s all located up and down the many hills of the city! It reminded me a lot of Lisbon in that way – I wonder if all of Portugal is like this!? The city is also full of street art, markets, and quirky wee shops, so there was plenty to look at along the way.
At one point we came across two churches that were separated by a tiny little sliver of building. Apparently back in the day it was forbidden to have two churches that shared a wall, so a tiny little house was build to separate them, just about a metre wide. Imagine! Apparently it was lived in until the 1980s, but I can’t imagine it would have been very comfortable! Just down the road from there was Livreria Lello, which claims to be the most beautiful bookstore in the world (sounds familiar, pretty sure a bookstore I visited in Buenos Aires a few years ago claimed the same thing), as well as supposedly being the inspiration for parts of the Harry Potter world. They charge a crazy fee to go inside, but we got in for just 2 euros thanks to a wee deal we got when booking our accommodation. Finally, we also came across a Camino marker, so of course I had to take a photo! There are many Camino routes, all headed to Santiago, and the Portuguese one passes through Porto. We also saw a few markers and arrows inlaid in the footpath as we explored.
After eating out for basically the entire Camino, we ended up just heading to the supermarket and picking up a salad or a soup for most meals.
Of course, we did have Pasteis de Nata, a Portugal specialty and one of the true pleasures in life, and I also tried a Francesinha, the typical sandwich of Porto. It’s essentially a variety of meats (this one had ham, steak, and sausage) between two slices of white bread, sitting in a bowl of beer and tomato gravy, topped with a fried egg with a side of fries. All the meat became a bit overwhelming, but it was very tasty!
To make it a real holiday, we had to spend a day at the beach too. After deciding not to take our togs on the Camino with us, this meant a day at the beach sunbathing in our underwear. No one seemed to care. We both were a bit pink by the time we got home that afternoon!
It was a nice few days’ break, but now we’re back in Santiago waiting for our flight to Madrid, from where we are then flying to Dubrovnik and meeting up with the extended fam – 9 of us in total – for a wee tiki tour of the Balkan Peninsula!
emilyonearth 
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