We decided on another energetic walking tour after sitting in the van for our tour of the Douro Valley yesterday. There were two "Best Walks" in the Lonely Planet guide so we decided to do the second one (did the first one two days ago). This one started just across the street form the apartment so it was easy to get going. This is the statue honouring Henry the Navigator, right across the street form our place.
As we were going past an impressive building on the way to the start of the walk, we noticed it had tours. Curious, we did some on the spot investigation and found out that the Palacio da Bolsa was one of the most lavish buildings in Porto. It was the main financial centre of Porto and now hosts the institution that certifies Port Wine Vintages. We took the one hour tour and were astonished by the lavish rooms that are all currently in use when the institute meets.
How would you like to have this for a wood floor in your house???
From here we went to the adjacent church, the Igreja de Sao Francisco. It doesn't look like much on the outside but inside it displays a dazzling display of baroque finery.
There is over 100kg of gold leaf. No photography was allowed but I had the mirrorless camera in stealth mode to capture a bit of the essence.
From here we headed to the waterfront and strolled the promenade. Here is the balcony picture of the day.
We had to search out a narrow set of stairs (only about 300) to take us up to the Se, a fortress like cathedral.
From here we were able to access the upper level of the Dom Luis I bridge and cross the Douro River.
There were some fabulous views from the bridge even though there was a bit of fog rolling in from the Atlantic. It reminded me of San Francisco.
Great rooftop mosaic....
Overview of the old city from the bridge...
Our apartment is about dead centre in this photo...
After crossing the bridge, we were in Vila Nova de Guia where all of the port wine producers had their storage facilities and today, tasting and hospitality centres.
There were terrific views of old Porto from here.
We had lunch at Sandeman then ventured up the hill to Taylor for a tour and tasting.
This provided a review of what we had learned yesterday followed by a couple of samples in a beautiful courtyard.
We had a bit of a walk back across the lower bridge and stopped at the apartment to try to get the internet problem solved. After a couple of trips to the office, voila! Back in business but I am way too far behind to catch up tonight.
We walked up the hill to a cute little family restaurant our tour guide from yesterday told us about. Luckily we were there early (19:30) and got a table to have a bit of home cooking.
After returning to the apartment, I stepped out for an hour to try some night photography down by the river. Got a few nice images that capture Porto at night.
