I sacked in this morning trying to shake my jet lag. I finally rolled out of the sack at about 9:30 and went down to breakfast at the hostel. The breakfast spread was pretty unappetizing. Dry cereal, cheese and biscuits with jam. I ate a big bowl of rolled oats with soy milk. It was almost inedible until I sprinkled some sugar on it.
After breakfast I sauntered down to the riverfront and boarded a boat for a Douro river tour.
After the river tour I decided to have lunch before my 3:30 Porto walking tour.
To make a horseshoe sandwich you lay two pieces of toast on a plate end to end, put a grilled hamburger patty on the toast, cover the hamburger patty with a mound of French fries and then cover the whole thing with cheese sauce. It is a real gut bomb.
My understanding is that a Franceshina is a sandwich stuffed with layers of spicy cold cuts covered with melted cheese and French fries. Did Springfield steal this sandwich from the Portuguese or did the Portuguese steal it from Springfield? Who knows?
I decided to skip the Franceshina and opted for lighter fare.
We spent almost four hours walking all over the old city of Porto while our tour guide gave us an extensive history lesson.
The church on the left was the original church. Some of the wealthy parishioners got mad at the strict parish priest so they left that church and built a much more ornate church next door, the church on the right. They had to build the tiny vertical apartment in between the two churches because there was a rule that prohibited two Catholic Churches from sharing a wall.
One of the stops on the tour was a beautiful mansion that had been converted into a sushi place. While we were walking around this stunningly detailed mansion/sushi joint they gave us a complimentary glass of sparkling wine. Seamus told the bartender that the sparkling wine was great but he could really use a cold beer. The bartender gave Seamus a beer and after that Seamus turned the walking tour into an improvised public crawl, ducking into a bar every few blocks for a beer in a to go cup.
That’s it for today. I hope you are having a wonderful day wherever you are. Good evening from Porto, Portugal.
Steps walked – 9,904
Kilometers walked – 7.5
Flights of stairs climbed – 24
AbeAndMarkontheCamino 