As to not make our 12 days of daily life too mundane for you, we are going blog a little differently and highlight our Porto/Gaia stay into topics rather than daily posts…Enjoy!
We loved our little apartment in Porto…Porto is located just up the Douro River close to the Atlantic Coast. Porto is the second-largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon, and the name “Porto” itself influenced the name of the country “Portugal”. However, our apartment is actually just across the Douro River from Porto in an equally intriguing area called Vila Nova de Gaia or just Gaia for short. Gaia is an old, densly packed village that is a little quieter, much less touristic and not as crowded as Porto. Perfect for us to get a more local feel for this wonderful little slice of the world. There also offers an exceptionally beautiful view of Porto across the river, as well as, a pretty view looking back at Gaia from Porto.
Gaia is actually where the history of Porto began, having been founded as a Roman settlement called Cale on the southern side of the Douro River in the 4th Century. The town had a its port on the other side of the river, referred to as Portus Cale, which originated the name not only of Porto, but also later the entire country. What followed the Roman Empire were the invasion of the Visigoths in 456 who then fell to the Moorish invasions of the Iberian peninsula in 716. The Moors stopped at the south side of the Douro River and most local inhabitants escaped the invasion by moving to what is now Porto on its northern bank. The Moors then driven out in 868 by a Catholic knight named Vímara Peres, who established “Portus Cale” and became its first ruler.
As Christians ruled again, it was safe to moved back to the southern bank where many founded what is now known as Vila Nova de Gaia (New town of Cale).
Gaia is famous for, and is still the location of, all the major port wine cellars (locally known as “caves”) where port wine is stored and aged after fermentation. The famous Portuguese fortified wine of “port” can only be produced with distilled grape spirits exclusively in the Douro Valley east of Gaia in the northern province of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, though it also comes in dry, semi-dry, and even white varieties (who knew?). We visited many of the caves while in Gaia and I will get into more detail on the topic of port wine, its history, traditions and the caves in a future post. Stay tuned.
Gaia’s topography consist of steep hills along the southern perimeter leading down to the more level waterfront. The hills have historically provided strategic defensive positions to protect against potential raiders coming up the river, as well as, the aging caves for the port wine industry. The more level waterfront served as the shipping port to bring the wine from the Douro Valley to Gaia. Today the port wine is brought into Gaia via more modern means, such as train and truck, so the waterfront now serves as Gaia’s main tourist area. The waterfront is home to many restaurants, vendors, boat cruises, food stands all right there. It is also a popular location where festivals, concerts and special events are held and is perfect for evening strolls with a little glass of fine port.
The Luis I Bridge connects the two. Pedestrians and cars along the bottom. Pedestrians and trains along the top.
I love to cook and Wayne loves to eat, so everything kind of works out. Our apartment has a little kitchen with a 2 burner hotplate and a microwave. I got by cooking us quite a few yummy meals. I mentioned before, I was looking forward to finding little markets where I could go to grocery shop every morning, i.e. the butcher, the bakery and the produce market. In Gaia, I found all of these within a relative short walking distance; however, some of these markets were straight up the hills via many stairs so I got my exercise. I went to these markets when I need to buy a lot of things. For quick shopping I found two little markets right on our street with a little bit (very little bit) of everything.
My favorite grocer was an old Portuguese lady. She made and sold her own bread which was so, so good. She always had some produce, cheeses, wine, dry goods and cold beer on hand. She was very nice and became my Portuguese language teacher. I would give her the things that I picked out and she would try to say what it was in English and then would tell me what it was in Portuguese and prompt me to say it. When I did speak Portuguese she would laugh and laugh. She was mostly bald on top (except for the hair around her ears and the back of her head (like Wayne). She was also toothless, but very sweet and I just loved her. I wish I had taken a pic with her.
There was another little market a few doors down from the other with a young man and his grandfather. The young man spoke English, which was so helpful. He had a surprisingly larger selection of items in his little market and was nice, but he wasn’t as fun as my lady grocer. The young man ran the store and was available to help you find things (it is challenging to find what you want when you don’t recognize packaging and all is in foreign language). His grandfather was very old and he was seated at the register. He would scan items and could take cash payment, but anytime someone wanted to use credit card, the young man came over to do the transaction. The grandson looked out for him and it was heart warming.
Buying produce here (and in Spain) can be challenging as well. There are prices per kilo labeled and a number. You take your produce to a scale and place it on to weigh it. Then you either have to enter the number or the price per kilo and a little sticker comes out and you place it on your produce so when you go to the register they can charge you accordingly. It can be stressful when you have 3 or 4 people behind you needing to weigh their produce and you are trying to muddle through pricing your items. All of the scales are different too, of course. A couple of times I went to the register and forgot to price my items….awful when there are people waiting in line behind you and the checker tells you to go weigh your produce or simply walks away from the register to go weigh it herself leaving you standing there…. It is actually quite common for people to leave the line to go get lost items leaving everyone behind you waiting. Wayne was in line at one of the larger grocery stores and one lady left the line 4 times to go get additional items while everyone in the line waited. The checker thought nothing of this and just waited for her to return too. You have to just go with the flow and not be in a hurry.
Our apartment was two floors up and directly above a neighborhood bar. It wasn’t a very large bar and it seemed like there were never more than 10 people or so there. However, there were 2 or 3 guys that were there late morning to early afternoon and late evening till past midnight. They were just the loudest men. Wayne especially thought they were super loud but I told him that when he gets together with Ron and Tom or his Dad and brothers, that they are just as loud. When these men would see a friend coming up the street or driving by they would yell, “HEY!!!” at the top of their lungs. Much of the time it sounded like they were arguing, but I think they are just passionate and often drunk. Sometimes, they would add loud music into the mix and other times they would play drums…. I found it to be hilarious and would often hang out the front window to have a gander. It was difficult for Wayne though as he was trying to work in the evenings and we had the windows open because it was in the 90’s F and we had no AC. When Wayne had a phone call, we would have to close all the windows and Wayne would move to the back of the apartment.
One thing we noticed while staying in Gaia, and in Porto as well, is the young men all really like to rev their engines. When they start their cars, motorcycles or scooters the RPM’s soar. One of the bar patrons really revved his engine every time he came and went on his little scooter. The men also slam the gas pedal down when the take off in their cars too. I don’t know what is up with that, but it seemed to be a consistent thing and Wayne and I would look at each other and laugh at them every time. They are soooo cool.
In Portugal we would go to bed at 1:30 am after Wayne was done with work. If we closed our bedroom door at bedtime we could deaden the bar noise a bit and go to sleep. If it was particularly loud that night, we could pop in our earplugs. I didn’t have a problem sleeping due to bar noise but I did have an issue with the seagulls squawking out the back bedroom window at first morning light. It must be a breeding ground behind us because you could hear babies squawking and chirping among the rooftops and the mommy seagulls yelling. This all started up at about 5 AM when it started to get light. It was nice when the doves made cooing type sounds and was peaceful, but then a squawking seagull would chime in and ruin the peace. Wayne said he liked it and it helped him wake up. I get my best sleep in the morning so it was difficult for me.
Overall though, we really like Porto. You should definitely visit if you are ever in the area…and stay a while. More later.