Porto – 13th October 2021

So, today didn’t pan out with as we had thought!

We were up early to have breakfast and be ready for a pick up for the tour to the Duaro valley between 8.30 and 9 am. After eating we walked out of the hotel and we immediately met by a driver who confirmed the booking name which sounded ok.

We were somewhat surprised to find that we were the only two people on the tour. Around half an hour into the journey, the driver took a call which it turns out was from his boss…. It seems that he had picked the wrong two passengers up!

He turned around and we headed back into Porto.  Meanwhile I managed to get hold of the tour company that we had booked with and, fortunately, we were able to rearrange the booking for the next day!

We arrived back in Porto at 9.30 and immediately walked towards the river, hoping not to bump in to the passengers from our hotel who had a delayed start!

When we got to the rubber we booked a boat and bus tour of Porto. The boat tour was first and we cruised along the Duaro, first upstream and then down to see the six bridges that span there river in the city.

The iron bridge is now disused but remains as a national monument. It was partly designed by Eiffel

The boat trip lasted about an hour and from there we walked to find the bus stop for the open top bus tour. We waited around for a while but eventually the bus arrived. The first route took us South of the river into Gaia. There wasn’t really that much to see and the commentary was difficult to hear.

When we moved back to the north, we got off at the Sao Bento station to get some lunch. We ended up at a riverside restaurant and had some lovely fish.

We resumed the tour and spent the next hour or so seeing the city, including back to the beach area where we had been the previous day.

Once back, we had a refreshment stop before walking across the bridge to see if we could do a tour of one of the Port houses. However we were too late for a tour so we simply sampled some of the wares!

By now it was almost sunset so we walked up the hill to view the sun set from near the top of the iron bridge. It was a lovely view!

Having seen the sun go down we walked back to the hotel for a shower before heading out again to find some tea in a local pizza place.

So exist the day did not go as we had planned, we spent a lovely day exploring more of Porto.